The development of adolescents in a non-residential alternative educational facility, including the prevention of secure residential placement

Summary
This study examined the development of 74 adolescents (13 to 17 years old, 62% boys) after their placement in the non-residential alternative educational facility School2Care, including the prevention of secure residential placement.

Findings
Results showed that 70% of the adolescents were not placed in a secure residential facility up until six months after leaving the educational facility. Adaptive emotion regulation strategies and feelings of empowerment showed positive changes and parent-reported externalizing problems decreased. No improvements were found in adolescents’ future-time perspective, family functioning and parenting stress. Differences in family functioning, treatment motivation and teacher-reported therapeutic alliances predicted secure residential placement.

Applications
Findings of this study provide some preliminary evidence that School2Care can possibly contribute to positive outcomes, which should be tested in (quasi-)experimental research, but also show that further improvement of the intervention may be required.