Alternative Education for Behaviorally Disordered Youths: A Promise Yet Unfulfilled

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to show the following: (a) Over a third of incarcerated delinquents are handicapped, needing special education treatment; (b) parallel trends to deinstitutionalize delinquents and to develop alternatives to public school for behaviorally disordered youths are putting some individuals from each category in the same alternative settings; (c) several other stress inducing societal trends are likely to increase the number of these youths; (d) the state of research in the field is poor (particularly lacking in long term evaluations); and (e) the belief that new prosocial behaviors inculcated (especially) by short term treatments will persist without subsequent changed social psychological support for clients is likely to be chimerical.

The Effectiveness of Social Work in an Alternative School for High School Dropouts

“…The more recent trend has been to maintain them in the community through placement in day programs or alternative schools (Mesinger, 1982(Mesinger, , 1986.…”