Services for troubled adolescents: exploring user variation |
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| Authors: | David Berridge,Jennifer Beecham&dagger ,Isabelle Brodie&Dagger ,Ted Cole§ ,Harry Daniels¶ ,Martin Knapp,& Virginia MacNeill&dagger &dagger |
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| Affiliation: | Professor of Child and Family Welfare, University of Luton,;Senior Research Fellow, University of Kent,;Researcher, Birkbeck College, University of London,;Senior Research Fellow, University of Birmingham,;Professor of Special Education, University of Birmingham,;Professorial Fellow, London School of Economics and Political Science, and;Research Officer, University of Oxford, UK |
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| Abstract: | This paper outlines some of the main findings from an exploratory study of a sample of 257 adolescents living in children's homes, foster homes and residential special schools ‘for pupils with emotional and behavioural difficulties’ (‘EBD’). It focuses on the characteristics of service users, particularly contrasting the looked after and EBD groups. Though there are some similarities, there are also important differences between the populations in terms of age, gender, ethnicity, reasons for separation, legal status, family background and education. An attempt was made systematically to compare groups by creating a subsample of ‘difficult’ adolescents, based on involvement in anti‐social behaviour. Unexpectedly, this revealed that half of the teenagers were not ‘difficult’. Factors associated with being identified as ‘difficult’ were explored. |
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| Keywords: | adolescence anti-social behaviour education emotional and behavioural difficulties social work |
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