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A new perspective on youth care programs: Using attachment theory to guide interventions for troubled youth

Resource type
Date created
1998
Authors/Contributors
Author: Moore, K.
Author: Holland, R.
Abstract
Traditional models of residential care for troubled youth are based on the assumption that their difficult and threatening behaviour needs to be contained and controlled. The authors argue that, despite the usefulness of some traditional treatment strategies when employed within certain contexts, these interventions are often of limited value in working with youth who have developed internal working models of adults as rejecting, punitive and untrustworthy. The reliance of traditional treatment programs on behavior can, in effect, undermine already fragile attachments of troubled youth to adults to develop a sense of personal responsibility for and control of their actions. We propose that attachment theory offers a framework for a fundamentally different approach to working with troubled youth's internal working models of self and other. This article reviews the process of transformation of a "traditional" control-focused program into a program that is guided by attachment theory.
Document
Published as
Moore, K., Moretti, M. M., & Holland, R. (1998). A new perspective on youth care programs: Using attachment theory to guide interventions for troubled youth. Residential Treatment For Children & Youth, 15(3), 1-24. doi:10.1300/J007v15n03_01 This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Residential Treatment For Children & Youth in 1998, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1300/J007v15n03_01
Publication title
Residential Treatment For Children & Youth
Document title
A new perspective on youth care programs: Using attachment theory to guide interventions for troubled youth
Publisher
Taylor & Francis
Date
1998
Volume
15
Issue
3
First page
1
Last page
24
Publisher DOI
10.1300/J007v15n03_01
Copyright statement
Copyright is held by the author(s).
Permissions
You are free to copy, distribute and transmit this work under the following conditions: You must give attribution to the work (but not in any way that suggests that the author endorses you or your use of the work); You may not use this work for commercial purposes.
Scholarly level
Peer reviewed?
Yes
Language
English
Member of collection

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