Compared a professional foster-care program and two specialized programs in Cook County, Illinois, with kinship and nonrelative-family foster homes. Found that professional and kinship foster care consistently outperformed specialized and nonrelative care in stability, sibling placement, care restrictiveness, and proximity to child's community of…

Comparison of residential care staff in England and Germany showed that, in the care industry, England has a training framework that is not yet widely used. Despite its strong vocational policies, Germany has none. Care assistants are not expected to have formal skills and rarely participate in training. "Emotional labor" is undervalued…

Family care of the elderly is key to the long-term care system, and its importance has led to an abundance of research over the past two decades. Several methodological and substantive issues, if addressed, could create even more targeted and interpretable research. The present review critically examines methodological topics (i.e., definitions of…

Background: The international literature has documented that self-determination is impacted by environmental factors, including living or work settings; and by intraindividual factors, including intelligence level, age, gender, social skills and adaptive behaviour. In addition, self-determination has been correlated with improved quality of life…

Purpose: Getting dressed is an activity that is of particular difficulty for many persons with dementia, given the need for hand-eye coordination, fine motor skills, and overall planning skills. Despite several studies concerning interventions to improve dressing behavior, very little is known about the dressing process as it is currently…

Federal assistance for residential care for children in California was reviewed to determine: (1) which sources of federal funds sustain children placed in group homes; (2) whether services paid for with federal funds were provided; (3) whether rates paid to group homes were unallowable or unreasonable; (4) whether conditions at the group homes…

Physical aggression among institutionalized mentally retarded persons arouses great social concern. To examine the effectiveness of four-point mechanical restraints and a positive adaptive symbol program in the reduction of high frequency, high intensity aggression, three institutionalized severely mentally retarded adolescents (2 females, 1 male)…

An implementation analysis conducted as part of a two-year study of residential and nonresidential treatment programs for the dually diagnosed (psychiatric illness and substance abuse disorders) homeless (n=276) found significant differences in client engagement and retention and variations in treatment conditions. (SLD)

Conducted two-year mental health intervention with older adults in six residential care facilities. Findings showed little intervention impact but revealed that residents treated were generally socially marginal with weak ego skills, rather that significantly mentally ill. Suggests more intensive program that restructures facility's milieu to…

Juvenile firesetting behavior has received relatively little research attention and previous attempts to systematically classify this heterogeneous population of children has been only partially successful. Currently there is no literature available that defines treatment and intervention needs of adolescents in residential treatment with…

Little research has been published on tattling, even less on its social impact, and we found none directly investigating tattling by adolescents. This study assessed the extent to which tattling, as perceived by peers and caregivers of adolescents in a residential care program, was associated with various dimensions of social status and other…

We examined Treatment Foster Care (TFC) in residential trajectories for youth with psychiatric disorders and aggressive behavior. We analyzed residential placements of a statewide sample of youth during the 12 months preceding and following admission to TFC. Prior to TFC, the majority of youth were residing in more restrictive settings (group…

This study examined the implementation of a model of managing aggressive and harmful behaviour in an adolescent in-patient psychiatric unit. This model, Positive Behaviour Management, replaced a previous model, Control and Restraint, which was considered unsuitable. Both models included the use of physical interventions, and the research into such…

Research has documented important interplays between the diagnostic characteristics of residents in group care centers and the functioning of staff teams responsible for the delivery of services. Factors that impact on the quality of working life satisfactions and frustrations are variable over time and may originate from within the team, the…

Families of nursing home residents often perceive the care provided by the nursing home staff to be inadequate or inappropriate. Consequently, conflicts and misunderstandings frequently arise between staff and family members. A study was conducted in two midwestern nursing homes which investigated the perceptions of family and staff about the care…