Secure Treatment Outcomes

First published in 1998, this volume recognises that, despite the plethora of benign welfare approaches to troubled and troublesome adolescents, a small proportion find themselves locked up. Who are they, why is it thought necessary to contain them and what effect does it have? This Dartington study tries to answer these questions by scrutinising the lives of 204 young people admitted to long-stay secure treatment units. It charts their experiences from their point of entry until two years after they leave. It also looks at equally difficult youngsters whose behaviour is dealt with in other ways. With such a varied group, it is difficult to be categorical about the value of security but, by employing a 'career' perspective that takes account of the interaction between life routes and process, the relationship between young people's background characteristics, treatment and subsequent experience becomes clear. In fact, the research found considerable predictability amid the apparent chaos, a feature that should help practitioners and managers to fashion more effective approaches.

Roger Bullock, Michael Little and Spencer Millham

1. Introduction. 2. Services for Disordered Adolescents: Defining Who is Very Difficult. 3. Selecting the Case and Designing the Study. 4. The Characteristics of Very Difficult Young People. 5. The Treatment Experience. 6. The Two Years After Specialised Treatment Interventions. 7. Social and Anti-Social Behaviour in the Two Years After Treatment. 8. Predicting from Extensive Data. 9. Making Individual Predictions. 10. Explaining Outcomes. 11. Outcomes from Less Intensive Interventions. 12. Conclusions.