Treatment, Training, Care or Control?

Abstract

Are more adolescent in-patient places needed? This has been the recommendation of a number of national and local working parties (Ministry of Health, 1964; Royal Medico-Psychological Association, 1965; Association for the Psychiatric Study of Adolescents, 1975; Court, 1976; Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1976) and it would be echoed by many exasperated doctors and social workers up and down the country to whom the local adolescent unit seems always full or too selective. At present there are some 30–40 adolescent units scattered throughout the U.K. sometimes 50 miles apart, and they vary considerably in their treatment policies and therefore in the sort of young person they admit (e.g. see Warren, 1952; Turle, 1960; Allchinet al, 1967; Berg and Griffiths, 1970; Evans and Acton, 1972; Bruggenet al, 1973; Wardle, 1974; Framrose, 1975; Perinpanayagam, 1978; Wellset al, 1978; Bedford and Tennant, 1981). They have tended to become specialised in one direction or another in order to develop reasonably coherent management systems for their turbulent clientele, so that in any given area one or other category of disturbed adolescent is likely to be left out, leaving many professional workers more conscious of what is missing in residential services than what is being done.