Group Home: A Descriptive Study of an After-Care Facility Recently Established by the Astor Home for Children, 1964-1965
Abstract
A new concept in child care has been developed in the fields of child welfare, mental health and delinquency. It is known as the group home. This idea gradually evolved as it became increasingly more evident that the existing child-care facilities were unable to provide the vast range of services which were being demanded of them to meet the many needs of children in placement. In the last ten years approximately 300 group homes have been established in the United States under the auspices of various public and private child welfare, delinquency and mental health organizations. At this point in the development of the group home as a child placement resource there is a great deal of differentiation among those agencies involved regarding terms, definitions and variations in the group homes themselves. However, despite the many differences in viewpoints among agencies it seems that generally speaking, group homes are either variations on institutions or on foster homes. They differ from the foster home in that more children are cared for, the foster parents have specialized qualifications and the financial arrangements are different between foster parents and agency. The group home differs from the institution by the smaller number of children in care, by the greater participation in community life and use of community re- 123 sources, and by greater flexibility in providing treatment programs to meet the individual needs of the children.
Subject Area
Mental health|Social work
Recommended Citation
Smith, Mary Olivia, "Group Home: A Descriptive Study of an After-Care Facility Recently Established by the Astor Home for Children, 1964-1965" (1965). ETD Collection for Fordham University. AAI30308740.
https://research.library.fordham.edu/dissertations/AAI30308740
