Residential Programs for Juveniles

Small and Nonprison-like Facilities

Juvenile state facilities across the United States are filled with hundreds of youths, with many of those facilities housing 200 or more. Large facilities create the challenges of maintaining safety, meeting the needs of young offenders, engaging families, and implementing treatment modules. Smaller facilities offer the opportunity to work with youths in small groups. Working with a small number of youths contributes to something very critical to the change process. Small groups create an opportunity to build relationships between youth and staff. Relationships are critical to the change process, and since behavioral change is the goal, smaller facilities create greater opportunities for this to occur. Building relationships also creates a safer environment. When the environment is safe, both emotionally and physically, programs have greater potential to achieve change. Small facilities provide the opportunity for staff to get to know the history and experiences of the youths within the facility. Knowing the personal life stories of these young people creates a foundation on which to build relationships. Once relationships are established, the staff is then able to guide youths through the change process.

The environment must support the mission of the agency. If change and growth are the goal of juvenile programs, then the environment must be one that is conducive to therapeutic growth. The environment of residential facilities is not conducive to therapeutic growth; the environment has cells, hard furniture, plain white walls, no carpeting, and no personalized space for youths. It is challenging to build relationships in a stale environment that resembles an adult prison. Therapists deliberately soften the environments in which they engage clients. A softer environment helps a youth relax and become comfortable enough to share significant personal issues. The juvenile residential facility must accomplish the same thing. The environment should consist of carpeted floors, comfortable couches and chairs, colorful walls, ideally youth artwork throughout the living space, and an open living space that promotes safety through supervision and engagement.

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