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Abstract
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VioLit summary:
OBJECTIVE:
The intent of this article by Grady was to describe Massachusetts' Brookside Farm School, an active farm which provided a therapeutic environment for emotionally disturbed adolescents by providing opportunities for hands-on experiences.
METHODOLOGY:
The author employed a non-experimental design by providing a program review.
FINDINGS/DISCUSSION:
The Brookside Farm School was an open campus with no impersonal restraints and a high staff to student ratio (1.28 counselors for each student). Twenty eight male adolescents were living at the farm during the time of the study. Modeled on an active farm, the school contained livestock, shops, gardens, a greenhouse and working wood lots, all providing many opportunities for hands-on experiences. Based on the concept that a safe, therapeutic environment was the best way to provide positive experiences, the school attempted to build positive staff-student relationships and to provide appropriate adult role modeling. Students ranged from 11 to 21 years old, with an average age of 17.6 years, typically from inner-city, broken homes. Most had borderline or average intelligence, some were psychotic and organically impaired, and some were unsocialized, aggressive and emotionally disturbed. Each student was expected to control his or her own behavior for the safety of the community, and discipline was approached as a violation of community standards through poor choices. Medications for various disorders was minimized as much as possible. An educational plan including academics, physical education, industrial arts, agriculture, and kitchen/housekeeping activities was created for each student, with the goal of emotional well being and eventual economic self-sufficiency. By planting, nurturing, harvesting, building, maintaining and repairing, the students developed a sense of skill development which aided self-esteem and simultaneously generated vocational skills and professional attitudes. Off campus activities also provided socialization skills and enhanced the students abilities to cope with every-day iterations in the public realm. Supportive services at the farm included a psychologist, nurse, consulting child psychiatrist, staff, teachers and administrative personnel, with a focus on regular communication among these services to better care for the individual students and to better meet their individual needs. Major emphasis in the operation of these services was placed on recognizing the students individual strengths, encouraging them to take responsibility, improving their self-control, and helping them to manage their emotions. Individual and group therapy occurred regularly with the psychologist and staff co-facilitators. The authors claimed that within this therapeutic milieu, most students developed the capability for more socially acceptable behaviors, with some leaving the program to enter full-time employment, greater independence and self-sufficiency. The effectiveness of the program, argued the authors, was due to the coordinated staff effort at challenging deviant subcultural norms. Staff training, selection and supervision was the most problematic element of challenging the deviant subculture, but with the past success, the program was expected to broaden somewhat to include more technical activities such as welding and automotive repair.
AUTHOR'S RECOMMENDATIONS:
The milieu approach to reacculturating violent male adolescents allowed for the successful management of interpersonal problems, but further research needed to be conducted, argued the author, on the degree to which these changes were long-lasting.
(CSPV Abstract - Copyright © 1992-2007 by the Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence, Institute of Behavioral Science, Regents of the University of Colorado)
KW - Massachusetts
KW - Juvenile Offender
KW - Juvenile Violence
KW - Juvenile Male
KW - Juvenile Treatment
KW - Male Violence
KW - Male Offender
KW - Offender Treatment
KW - Violence Treatment
KW - Residential Treatment
KW - Treatment Program
KW - Program Effectiveness
KW - Intervention Program
KW - Violence Intervention |