Resources

• Institutions vs. Foster Homes: The Empirical Base for a Century of Action
  This report from the Jordan Institute for Families, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill finds that institutional care is not an essential component of the child welfare system for the majority of children. The review considers four outcome measures for children in institutional care, including child abuse and neglect rates, reunification, success of young adults leaving care, and financial costs of care.

• Practicing Restraint
  This article from the Child Welfare League of America's "Children's Voice" discusses the use of restraint and seclusion in residential group homes.

• Residential Group Care Quarterly
  This Child Welfare League of America publication is available online. Sign up to receive e-mail alerts when the newest issue of Residential Group Care Quarterly is available.

• Update: Latest Findings in Children's Mental Health, Vol. 2, No. 1
  According to findings of a 1997 survey, conducted by the U.S. Center for Mental Health Services (CMHS), many teenagers with severe and complex emotional disturbances are found in residential care programs rather than psychiatric hospitals. Often, these are "system kids" who are shuttled in and out of temporary placements in various child-serving agencies. This publication is the result of a collaboration among Rutgers University, the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, and the Annie E. Casey Foundation.

• Residential Treatment Programs: Concerns Regarding Abuse and Death in Certain Programs for Troubled Youth
  Residential treatment programs provide a range of services, including drug and alcohol treatment, confidence building, military-style discipline, and psychological counseling for troubled boys and girls with a variety of addiction, behavioral, and emotional problems. This testimony from the Government Accountability Office concerns programs across the country referring to themselves as wilderness therapy programs, boot camps, and academies, among other names. GAO found thousands of allegations of abuse, some of which involved death, at residential treatment programs across the country and in American-owned and American-operated facilities abroad between the years 1990 and 2007.

• Residential Facilities: State and Federal Oversight Gaps May Increase Risk to Youth Well-Being
  This Government Accountability Report discusses findings of a survey to examine youth well-being in residential facilities as well as the ability of states and the Federal government to provide oversight.

Teleconference

• Restraint and Seclusion
  This NRCFCPPP teleconference for state foster care and adoption managers provides an overview of legislation impacting restraint and seclusion, promising practices that successfully reduce the use of these techniques and a movement from use of restraint to trauma-informed care.

Bibliographies

• Youth Residential Programs (January 2001)

• Restraint and Seclusion (March 2008)
  Prepared for an NRCFCPPP teleconference by the Child Welfare Information Gateway. For newer titles added to the Gateway database, click: http://basis.caliber.com/cwig/ws/library/docs/gateway/SearchForm

NRCFCPPP Information Packet

• Adolescents in Residential Treatment and Foster Care by Ellen Lyons Miller (May 2002)

Website

• Child Welfare League of America - Residential Group Care

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               
Last updated 04/25/08