STRUGGLE FOR INTEGRITY IN RESIDENTIAL CHILDREN’S HOMES: PROFESSIONAL SELF-ESTEEM AND ORGANIZATIONAL DEVELOPMENT — PRACTICAL EXPERIENCES FROM HUNGARY
Abstract
This article presents an organizational development process — a therapeutic residential care model known as “Armchair” — that is based on qualitative experiences gained by the author in 10 years of practice, and that draws upon theories from child and youth care (CYC) and organizational psychology. The ideas described here have been implemented in several children’s homes in Hungary. Based on the premise that CYC is an autonomous applied science, the paper describes briefly the theoretical principles created from everyday practice in Hungary. It examines similarities between this model and the Cornell CARE model from the United States in relation to such aspects as the basic needs of children in residential care and the long-term orientation to building practice methods within agencies. A practical approach with a system-oriented perspective developed in Hungary for implementing the principles is presented. This includes a Plan-Do-Check-Act cycle model-quality assurance system designed to meet the needs of children, and furnishes an example of how information technology software can support the daily job of employees in terms of administrative and supportive activities. The article discusses weaknesses, threats, or challenges that can occur during implementation and threaten the program’s aims of helping both children and staff. This analysis uncovers the underlying role and importance of positive identity and self-esteem among staff, with a strong focus on personal and professional integrity. In conclusion, findings are presented that indicate some possible solutions for the problems discussed, comparing these qualitative results to previous quantitative evidence found in research studies measuring the effectiveness of the CARE model, and drawing some commonalities from the two approaches.Downloads
Metrics
Copyright (c) 2018 Zsolt B. Major

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
Authors contributing to the International Journal of Child, Youth and Family Studies agree to release their articles under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 Unported license. This licence allows anyone to share their work (copy, distribute, transmit) and to adapt it for non-commercial purposes provided that appropriate attribution is given, and that in the event of reuse or distribution, the terms of this license are made clear.
Authors retain copyright of their work and grant the journal right of first publication.
Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
Rights Granted After Publication
After publication, authors may reuse portions or the full article without obtaining formal permission for inclusion within their thesis or dissertation.
Permission for these reuses is granted on the following conditions:
- that full acknowledgement is made of the original publication stating the specific material reused [pages, figure numbers, etc.], [Title] by/edited by [Author/editor], [year of publication], reproduced by permission of International Journal of Child, Youth & Family Studies [link to IJCYFS website];
- In the case of joint-authored works, it is the responsibility of the author to obtain permission from co-authors for the work to be reuse/republished;
- that reuse on personal websites and institutional or subject-based repositories includes a link to the work as published in the International Journal of Child, Youth & Family Studies; and that the material is not distributed under any kind of Open Access style licences (e.g. Creative Commons) which may affect the Licence between the author and IJCYFS.