engleski

Running away from residential treatment: youth voices on reasons, manifestations, existing and adequate interventions

Research rationale: Public expert debates directed toward residential care for children and youth with behaviour problems usually highlight the problem of runaways as current and blazing topic. This has prompted the research teams from Centre for Missing and Exploited Children and University of Zagreb, Faculty of Education and Rehabilitation Sciences to conduct studies in order to get insight in the phenomenon of youth runaways from residential care treatment. Very important information about youth running away was obtained through quantitative research at the beginning of 2015, which was aimed at gaining insight into the reasons for running away from residential care. All residential care institutions in the Republic of Croatia participated in this research, in other words, all 201 beneficiaries age 13 to 20 participated in the study. The results of this research indicate that 45.8% of young people reported that they had an experience of running away from residential care. The most common ones are short-time runaways (35.9% of participants), while longer-term runaways (more than one month) occurred in 13.3% of beneficiaries. The most common reasons which young people emphasize like reasons for running away are bad living conditions in the home, and a feeling of nonbelonging in residential care. As a very important reason, which was also stated, was a desire to be with their family (30% of the beneficiaries). Additionally, it is particularly concerning that 65% of young people did not consider themselves to be in any danger while they were on the run, which also included spending nights out. The most dominant profile of youth who runaway (tested through regression analysis) includes following characteristics: lack of problem solving skills, lack of attachment to the institution and presence of family belonging. Aim of the research: These findings prompted the research team to gain a more detailed insight into a comprehensive understanding of the occurrence of runaways in the youth - in the processes, as well as in the circumstances and significance of this behavior through further research of the qualitative type, in other words talking to young people about their experience during the time spent running away from the residential care or family home. The results of this research, the perspective of young people with the experience of running away, mainly from residential care, will be presented through this presentation, while a short review of the perspective of young people who run away from family home will be also given, mainly due to the small number of available participants during the research. Research Methods: The study involved 20 young people who had at least one episode of running away from residential care institution or family home for more than 24 hours. Participants were between 14 and 18 years of age. 15 of them were accommodated in the residential care institutions (Bedekovčina, Rijeka and Osijek) and ran away from residential care institutions, while 5 of them ran away from the family home. For the purpose of research implementation, a protocol was developed for a semi- structured interview, which contained questions primarily focused on describing the process of running away 71 from the participants themselves, on gaining insight in consequences of running away, risky situations during running away, lessons learned from that experience, and recommendations for improving the care system with the aim of preventing this occurrence. After the implementation of the research, thematic framework analysis was applied in accordance to the following topics: 1) the reasons for residential care treatment, 2) experience of residential care treatment, 3) reasons for running away, 4) protective factors for prevention of running away, 5) reactions of caregivers, 6) lessons learned, and 7) youth recommendations for the improvement of the system. The results: The results of the thematic framework analysis provide the descriptions of each topic across the categories. Thus, as reasons for accommodation in an residential care institution, several categories can be recognized: changed family circumstances, most participants with several changes in family dinamic (parents’ divorce, parent’s death, household composition), quarrels in the family environment, dysfunctional behaviour of parents, domestic violence, manifestation of behavioural problems as a reaction to family circumstances, skipping school, drinking alcohol, consuming addictive or illegal substances) and there are those young people who have been living in social welfare institutions since birth. The experience of living in the residential care institution is described by young people through the following categories: the arrival in the residential care institution represents an important life event, the emotional impact of living in the residential care institution is present (from mixed feelings, to the usually present primarly unfavorable emotions, and in lesser extend favorable emotions), the importance of relationships with the beneficiaries in the residential care treatment is present, and peer relations are marked by violence. As a reason for running away, young people describe unsatisfied needs (such as the need to spend time with people with whom they are close, to satisfy some antisocial needs such as alcohol and psychoactive substances abuse) and, also, they describe situationally motivated incentives for running away or circumstances that young people perceive as “triggers” for running away at a certain point. Protective factors that contribute to the prevention of running away can be divided into internal protective factors, which are mainly oriented toward satisfaction with residential care accommodation, involvement in constructive activities, and fear of consequences. External protective factors are oriented toward important relationships with people outside as well as inside the institutional care. The beneficiaries address numerous interventions from the experts which can be described as continuum from non-response, or late response, through constructive and unconstructive conversations, various “fair” and “unfair” sanctions. The following categories can be recognized: non – reaction on runaways, support of runaways because of compassion, punishment of the beneficiaries, conversation with the beneficiary after return in the institution, and a meaningless round of intervention. The theme of lessons learned from runaways, or what youth have learned from that experience can be presented through six categories. These are: experienced feelings during running away (in terms of fear, guilt, but also pleasant feelings), dangers during the escape, insight into the (non) cost-effectiveness of runaways, the inadequacy of interventions from professionals, awareness of the consequences after the return from runaway, and the lessons which can be described as positive aspects of the runaways, such as, running away is fun and it can teach young people how to be independent. 72 Apart from the fact that participants during the interview detailed the dynamic and reasons of runaways and also described interventions of professionals after the occurence, they provided very comprehensive recommendations on the possibilities for improvement of the system, with the aim of preventing further runaways of youth from residential care institutions. They refer to the normalization of living conditions in the institution, the establishment of better relationships with the professionals, greater activity of the professionals’ in problem solving, involvement in meaningful activities, practice of fair and human professional interventions after runaway. Due the small sample of participants who have the experience of running away from family home, the thematic frame analysis was not applied on conducted data. The general direction shows that girls decide to runaway from family home often in agreement with a boy with whom they are in romantic relationship and they want to spend time with them. Male youngsters decide to runaway from family home when they want to participate in some activities which are very important to them but their parents are banning such activities. Conclusion: Analysing the data, we can conclude that young people are running away because they feel that their needs are not satisfied (need for family and home, need for society, freedom, entertainment, etc.) and they perceive that residential care conditions are unacceptable. They outlined very small extent of protective factors to prevent them from running away. Some youth emphasized that this experience of escaping from residential care even helped them because they experienced meaningful and interesting life events, re-established their social relations and became aware of their strengths. Based on these results, through project activities several strategies for the prevention of runaways from residential treatment institutions was created: (1) guidelines for the professional conversation with youth after they come back in the institution because these conversations are either always the same or are not carried through ; (2) preventive workshops primary directed to strengthening of problem solving skills, self-control and self-protective skills. Through these strategies we can contribute to the development of better practice, which can meet therapeutic goals and support needs of youth.

runaways, residential care, qualitative research, strategies for the development of better practice

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