Staffed group homes for children and youth : constructing a theoretical framework for understanding
Bibliographic record
Abstract
This research study utilised the grounded theory method as developed by Glaser and Strauss (1967) in order to construct a theoretical framework for understanding the functioning of staffed group homes for children and youth. Ten residential settings in five governmental regions of British Columbia were studied over a period of fourteen months using the techniques of on-site participant observation, transcribed interviews and document analysis.\nThe core theme that emerged from the constant comparative analysis was "congruence". The notions of the "struggle for congruence" and "the flow of congruence" in service of the children's best interests were seen to play a pivotal role in the functioning of group home life and work, and three properties of congruence were identified: consistency, reciprocity and coherence. Three major psychosocial processes also emerged as sub-categories, including: "creating an extrafamilial living environment", the overall task of a home; "responding to pain and pain-based behaviour", the major challenge for staff; and "developing a sense of normality", the primary goal for residents. Completing the framework matrix were eleven key interactional dynamics that were evident across all five levels of operation of the group homes, namely: extra-agency, management, supervision, carework/teamwork, and youth and families.\nTen selected residential child and youth care studies published in Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States are analysed through the lens of the framework. While seen to be complementary to the related texts, this study brings forward several previously neglected aspects of group home life and work together with more commonly explored notions into an integrated and accessible framework. Implications for residential child and youth care policy development, education, practice and research are proposed.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.009 | 0.006 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.004 | 0.003 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.008 | 0.030 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.011 | 0.011 |
| Open science | 0.004 | 0.006 |
| Research integrity | 0.003 | 0.003 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".