Peter M. Van den Bergh

A method for supporting intake decisions in residential child and youth care: Initial experiences and a case description

From the point of view of professional care providers, residential treatment can be conceived as a decision process. Three decision points can be distinguished which appear to be crucial: Admission to residential care, treatment planning and implementation, and termination of a stay. Research shows that these intervention decisions can easily be affected by subjective or coincidental factors, posing a threat to the methodical character of the treatment process. At Leiden University we developed a method to support a more structured approach of decision-making related to admission, theIntake-Decisional Balance Sheet (IDBS). In the paper the theoretical background, the format, and the usefulness of this method will be discussed. An application of the IDBS is illustrated with a specific case.

Video interaction guidance in residential treatment

In Video Interaction Guidance the principles of Video Home Training are applied in the living group of a residential institution. Video Home Training is an intensive form of educational support. This method tries to restore the parents’ pleasure in child-rearing by showing and discussing the positive contact initiatives with the child that have been recorded on video. In Video Interaction Guidance, the skills of the child care workers and the team counsellor are emphasized. A child care worker makes the video recordings and the team of workers analyzes these images under the direction of the team counsellor. This often increases mutual cooperation and attunement among group members. This enables the method to contribute to more explicit, methodical actions by the child care workers. More detailed research on the effects of the method is recommended.

Treatment planning in residential institutions

In child and youth care in the Netherlands, systematic planning of treatment is more and more considered to be a condition for effective and well founded treatment. Although workers are convinced of the benefits of treatment plans, treatment planning is not yet a natural and integrated part of residential care. There are several pressure points. In this article a model of treatment planning will be presented that contributes to an answer to these pressure points. The theoretical bases and the practical implications of this model will be discussed.