A Study on the Program Design and Effectiveness Evaluation of Group Treatment for Juvenile Delinquents

• Main Authors: Hsu, Yu-Shuang, 許玉霜
• Other Authors: Lin, Chia-Hsin
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2018
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/badmpj

博士 === 國立暨南國際大學 === 諮商心理與人力資源發展學系輔導與諮商研究所 === 106 === It is an extremely important personal reconstruction in the juvenile phase and it is also malleable, even if juvenile delinquents. However, all juvenile delinquents, except those who obstructed sexual autonomy or violated the “Narcotics Hazard Prevention Act”, are less likely to have psychological treatment, especially group therapy. The purpose of this research was to design a group treatment program suitable for juvenile delinquents, and to evaluate the program effectiveness. In this research, a group therapy/counselling model was adopted, in which eight juveniles under probation participated in the group therapy program. The researcher was the group leader and the group was conducted for two hours each session every other week for 12 sessions. Kirkpatrick's four-level assessment was used to evaluate the group treatment effectiveness: reaction effects (including attendance and participation, etc.); learning effects (changes in impulsive behaviors); behavior effects (behavior changes in the Achenbach System of Empirically Based Assessment "Youth Self-Report); and the results effects (including the agency expectations and cost assessment). The results of the research were discussed in three parts. First of all, in regard of the implementation and development of the group treatment plan, the results showed that the group therapy programs for the juvenile delinquents needed appropriate and timing adjustments according to group dynamic, the participation of teenagers, the state of change during the group process, and the needs of juveniles. Secondly, based on the Kirkpatrick four-level evaluation model, the outcomes of group treatment program were as the following: the results of reaction level showed that the juvenile's attendance and participation in the third phase of the group had significantly improved over the first phase. The results of the learning level showed that the juvenile's willingness to change was significantly higher in the third stage of the group than in the first stage, and presented less behaviors in "mobile impulsiveness", "unplanned impulsiveness", and "impulsiveness" orientation. On the behavioral level, the participants were found improvement on the following subscales of “Youth Self-Report for Ages 11-18": "in violation of the normative behavior", "aggressive behavior" and "social problem", indicating that juveniles improved significantly when compared with the pre-test after 12 sessions groups of treatment programs. On the results level, the group therapy program were found in line with the expectations of the organization as a whole. In addition, the cost of group therapy was lower than that of individual psychotherapy, the attendance rate of juveniles reached 72.2%, and dropout rate was 25%. It was shown that this group therapy program had a certain degree of positive effect on the participating juvenile offenders. The main effect was to promote juvenile “impulse control” and to decrease their “violation of norms” and “attack behavior”. Finally, judging from the improvements of juvenile delinquents in the group process, the benefits of group therapy program for juveniles included their change in attitudes toward group involvement, their change in group involvement, their change in group norms compliance, the change in their view of group and crime, and the transformation in their relationship with the researcher. There were some limitations of this research, including the lack of diversification in research subject sources, difficulties in recruiting research participants, juvenile delinquents presenting great challenging, limited sessions of the group, inability to understand the participants' relationships with their family, and fail to collect related information from their families and teachers.