The relationship between parent-youth interaction and delinquency in group homes

Abstract

Interactions between the youths and group home parents in 10 group homes were directly observed during a 2-hour session in each home. These observations were compared to questionnaire measures of the youths' self-reported delinquency while in the group home, and their evaluation of the group home program. The results indicated that over the 10 homes there was a strong inverse correlation between mean self-reported delinquency and the average amount of time youths spent taking to (rs = -.95) and in proximity to (rs = -.81) their group home parents. Talking to group home parents also showed a positive correlation with the youths' evaluation of their group home program. Similar trends were found when the correlations were computed over individual youths, although the magnitudes were reduced. These data may have implications for our understanding of the relationship between parenting behaviors and delinquency, as well as for the improvement of group-home treatment programs.

Children as Service Evaluators

“…Where client satisfaction was correlated with self reported outcome few studies report a significant relationship. For example, Shapiro et al (1997) found no relationship between satisfaction and self reported problem behaviour; Solnick et al (1981) found no relationship between satisfaction and self reported delinquency. A number of studies, however, report that client satisfaction is significantly associated with third party assessment of treatment outcome.…”

“…The services included 'teaching-family' homes for young offenders (Kirigin et al, 1982;Solnick et al 1981), psychiatric inpatients (Furst et al, 1993;Kazdin et al, 1987), outpatients of psychiatric departments (Loff, Trigg & Cassels, 1987) and community based services (Rosen et al, 1994;Shapiro, Welker & Jacobson, 1997Stüntzner-Gibson, Koren & DeChillo, 1995.…”

“…Two studies involving adolescent clients of 'teaching-family' group homes used a specially designed Youth Consumer Evaluation questionnaire to evaluate client relationships with programme staff (Solnick et al, 1981;Kirigin et al, 1982). The 15 item questionnaire included questions about the fairness, concern, effectiveness and pleasantness of the teaching-parents.…”

“…Only a small number of studies present any information on retest reliability (Solnick et al, 1981;Waxman & Eash, 1983;Masters, 1978;Shapiro, 1997). Where the data was qualitative researchers have typically reported inter-rater reliability on the classification of the children's responses (Austin et al, 1996;Armstrong & Sugawara, 1989;Huttunen, 1992;).…”

“…Kvist et al (1991) reported significant differences between children's satisfaction with different features of a paediatric service. There is more evidence on discriminant validity of satisfaction questionnaires from mental health services (Kirigin et al, 1982;Solnick et al, 1981;Stüntzner-Gibson et al, 1995). Furst et al (1993) also reported a significant increase in client satisfaction following staff training in a children's psychiatric hospital.…”