This study investigates the efficacy of small group home placement for special needs, psychoemotionally disturbed, and delinquent children and adolescents. In order to place the investigation in context, it is first necessary to examine the various features and characteristics of the group home setting. In this way, the understanding of the efficacy research can be more fully developed.
Therefore, this section of the paper examines several characteristics and features of group homes including: the physical setting and environment of these homes; the characteristics of children and adolescents placed in group homes; types of group homes; public and professional attitudes toward group home placement; and problems confronting group homes.
The group home, according to the Mental Disability Law Reporter (1981) is a facility providing a variety of different services for different kinds of resident populations. These populations include special needs, behaviorally and emotionally disturbed children and adolescents as well as children or adolescent delinquents or criminal offenders.
Group homes can vary in size. The small group home attempts to provide services delivered in a family context. Specifically, the small group home is legally defined as a dwelling with one or more persons living together as a single housekeeping unit which may include not more than four to six lodgers or boarders (Mental Disability Law Reporter, 1981). When lodgers or boarders reach numbers greater than six, the group home is generally termed a "residential facility," rather than a small group home.
The history of the group home as been discussed by Jacobson (1992) who notes that the homes began in an effort to serve a specific population, namely people with severe and persistent mental disabilities. Although in the early days, such homes served a large number of people, Jacobson reports that group homes now actually serve, on either a te...