Adolescence and mental health in residential care: Portrait of a decade in Portugal

Very recently, legal diplomas were created that seek, on the one hand, to reinforce the needs for specialized responses moving towards to the internationally defended paradigm of residential therapeutic care, and, on the other hand, to create conditions for foster care to be more representative as a non-residual response for children/young people away from their natural contexts of life and in situations where the interest of the child/young person is superior or justified. The indicators in study include sociodemographic data, such as sex and age of participants, as well as the prevalence of behavioral problems and their intensity, mental health problems and psychiatric medication. A first result is related to the characteristics and alterations of the adolescent population in RC across the years (e.g., decrease of number of residents but higher prevalence of adolescents, higher representation of adolescents with behavior and mental health problems) and a second one refers to the complexity regarding deinstitutionalization processes, families support and human resources.