Relational Climate and Effectiveness of Residential Care: Adolescent Perspectives

Abstract

In Italy, the evaluation of residential care is particularly important in view of: (1) the process of deinstitutionalization; (2) the power of the public authorities to devolve the running of services, including residential communities, to private partners. The literature has stressed the importance of involving multiple stakeholders in the design and implementation of evaluative research. This article summarizes a research plan for the evaluation of child and adolescent residential communities based on the theoretical framework of developmental psychopathology and Bronfenbrenner's ecological model of human development. A study is presented on the perception that adolescents in care have of the community's relational climate—analyzed by way of everyday routines and communications with adults—and of the effects of the intervention. The results corroborate the hypothesis that the relational climate in a community is a good predictor of the efficacy of residential care.

KEYWORDS:

• clinical and social intervention
• evaluation measurement
• institutional social climate
• Italy
• residential communities for children

Acknowledgments

Data presented in this study come from the national project “Adolescent residential care's assessment,” funded by the Italian Ministry of University and Scientific Research (MURST). We acknowledge the substantial role in the project of Francesca Emiliani and Paola Bastianoni.

Notes

L. 149/2001.

In the family-type communities, an adult couple, with or without their own children, live there on a stable basis, aided by third parties who are committed to the running of educational activities and the daily routines. The educational communities, instead, use a professional team that does not dwell within the community on a stable basis but that rotates on a daily or hourly basis. The team comprises operators, whose tasks and functions are generally identical and a coordinator.

The total variance explained for the frequency scale was equal to 58.80%, with factor loading ranging between .85 and .49; the total variance explained for the importance scale was equal to 60.26%, with factor loading ranging between .83 and .45.

Because of the relatively small number of adolescents when compared to the amount of items, we also conducted Principal Component Analyses using data from the entire study population (59 adolescents and 73 educators) on the scales assessing daily routines and the effects attributed to the intervention. The results (here not presented) confirm the presence of the same dimensions described in this article, with some differences in the factorial structure.

The total variance explained was equal to 58.14%, with factor loading ranging between .80 and .54.

The total variance explained was equal to 53.55%, with factor loading ranging between .78 and .41.