Evaluering van die effektiwiteit van terapeutiese programme in kindersorgskole met spesifieke verwysing na Rosenhof Jeugsorgsentrum

English: Article one: The purpose of this study was to investigate the general function of the child-care school in society, as well as the programmes offered at these schools, and to describe these in accordance with the existing relevant literature. Accordingly, a survey of the learners referred to child-care schools was conducted, and their clinical profile and background were discussed. From the literature studied, it became clear that all child-care school learners display a characteristic emotional uncertainty and immaturity which often lead to unsatisfactory interpersonal relationships. It also appeared that there is a close relationship between the clinical profile of the child-care school learners and their background. The environmental, socio-economic and family background of child- care school learners can be described as unsuitable, unbalanced and insufficient in nature. This may lead to various behavioural problems among the learners whose normal development and experience are found not to be on par with those of other learners of their age. The Child Care Act (1983), however, makes provision for referral and admission to, as well as re-education of these learners at the child-care school. In order to be able to re-integrate the admitted learners into the broader society as responsible, well-equipped and well-balanced persons, it is necessary that an all-inclusive therapeutic approach be followed at child-care schools. The main purpose of the child-care school is to create an educational world of living by means of the offering of therapeutic programmes, i.e. a world in which the pedagogically neglected learner will be able to catch up with that part of education that he or she had to do without before admission, and to correct the shortfall or deficiencies in the education of the learner concerned. In this literature study, specific reference is made to the Rosenhof Youth Care Centre which is the only child-care school in Bloemfontein. A survey regarding the origin and development of Rosenhof Youth Care Centre, as well as the therapeutic programmes offered there, was conducted and discussed in detail. There are four fundamental principle phases on which the therapeutic programmes are based, namely satisfying the need “to belong”, the creation of opportunities to experience success, the encouragement to become independent and the finding of virtuousness in the value of sharing. The functioning of the therapeutic programmes is holistic in nature, and therefore the interventions can be viewed as building blocks which eventually lead to the achievement of success in life skills by the child-care school learner. This study supports the notion that child-care schools give stability and direction to the disrupted lives of the said learners. The task at hand cannot be performed without using a therapeutic approach. It requires conscientious, dedicated and unselfish commitment from the multi-professional team to achieve success in the offering of the therapeutic programmes – a task which was performed successfully according to the findings of the study in hand, namely an investigation of the all-inclusive therapeutic approach followed at the Rosenhof Youth Care Centre. Article two: In the empirical study, the researcher determined the biographical background functioning of girls at Rosenhof Youth Care Centre. The behaviour of the group under investigation was observed before and after they had been exposed to the therapeutic programmes offered at Rosenhof Youth Care Centre. A tenth of the newly admitted learners at the school were used as research group. Their observable behaviour was evaluated on admission by members of the multi-professional team, consisting of the management team of the school, teachers, child-care staff, residence personnel and school psychologists, by means of a self-structured questionnaire. After six months, the research group was re-evaluated by the same members of the multi-professional team. By making use of statistical processing inclusive of paired t-testing and frequencies, the multi-professional team endeavoured to determine whether the observable behaviour of the research group had improved significantly after completing the therapeutic programmes offered at Rosenhof Youth Care Centre. A frequency analysis of the results obtained with regard to the biographical background of the research group showed that the average age of the research group was between fourteen and fifteen years. The learners were in Grade eight and in the adolescent stage of development. Most of the learners had already repeated at least one grade in their school career and as far as general knowledge was concerned, the majority seemed to be deprived. In most cases, the learners’ parents were divorced and they spent their holidays with the biological mother. It was interesting to note that most of the learners were not illegitimate at birth. The researcher came to the conclusion that the main reason for reference to the Rosenhof Youth Care Centre was the sexual misbehaviour of learners. With regard to the results of the observable behaviour of the research group, no significant differences were found between the pre- and post-test scores with regard to the all-inclusive programme bases. However, an analysis of separate behavioural aspects such as interpersonal relationships, communication skills, standards of neatness, self-assertion and independent decision-making of learners showed a significant improvement. The fact that no significant changes took place in some areas can be ascribed to the short period of time during which the learners were exposed to the therapeutic programmes. The vast improvement in the maintaining of interpersonal relationships achieved over a short period of time, revealed an effective, significant change in the behaviour and clinical profile of the child-care school learners concerned. The majority of learners admitted to Rosenhof Youth Care Centre came from a deficient, problematic biographical background which manifested itself in problematic and deviant behaviour. The therapeutic programmes offered at Rosenhof Youth Care Centre directly address negative behavioural patterns, and, in spite of a short period of exposure to these programmes, the learners’ interaction with others took a positive turn. It could thus be concluded that the therapeutic milieu at Rosenhof Youth Care Centre was effective in changing the behaviour of deprived learners significantly.