Parental participation in residential treatment in the Netherlands

Comparable with the situation in other countries it has become a generally accepted principle in the Netherlands to involve parents as much as possible in the treatment process of children with emotional and behavioural disturbances, who have been placed in residential care. After discussing the reasons for this, we explore the ways in which parents can be involved in practice. Next, we show some results from recent research in the Netherlands, in which the actual participation of parents in the residential treatment of their son or daughter was investigated. It can be concluded that the involvement is limited. The results also show the central position of the group worker concerning parent contacts. We advocate more attention to the activities of this discipline with parents--in research as well as in practice.