Practitioners in youth justice facilities encourage their staff to develop positive relationships with the youth in their care with the aim of establishing a therapeutic alliance to address the causes of offending. This Dutch study investigates how workers might tailor their interactions with incarcerated youth to enhance such an alliance. The study The study involved 47 youths across two juvenile…
Practitioners become concerned when their staff, typically new staff, become too close to the young people (YP) in their care. Staff themselves believe, correctly, that a close relationship is necessary to bring about changes in the YP’s life. However, the relationship can transform into a ‘peer-to-peer’ relationship, i.e. both parties are ‘equal’ in the relationship and thus the worker is…
Absconding from placements increases risk of contact with correctional systems Practitioners have long known that young people who abscond from placement are at increased risk. Academics from the University of Michigan in the United States have completed an interesting study looking at the relationship between absconding and entry into the juvenile and adult correctional justice systems. The study compared a…
Practitioners in the out-of-home care (OoHC) and youth justice (YJ) programs often state that their work is ‘all about relationships’, meaning that a positive staff-client relationship is a necessary first step in achieving outcomes with the client. A recent Portuguese study adds to the body of evidence suggesting that this is in in fact the case. The aims of the…
Practitioners who work with high-risk adolescents (HRA) often wonder who such adolescents turn to for help in times of crisis. A recent Israeli study looked at the differing reasons HRAs seek help from youth workers versus others, e.g. parents, peers and teachers. Youth workers are defined as workers in non-mainstream educational settings, which specialise in dealing with adolescents at risk.…
Practitioners who work with high-risk adolescents (HRA) often wonder who such adolescents turn to for help in times of crisis. A recent Israeli study looked at the differing reasons HRAs seek help from youth workers versus others, e.g. parents, peers and teachers. Youth workers were defined as workers in non-mainstream educational settings, which specialise in dealing with adolescents at risk.…