Pain, Normality, and the Struggle for Congruence

Book excerpt: Learn what children living in group homes need most! Pain, Normality, and the Struggle for Congruence: Reinterpreting Residential Care for Children and Youth presents the results of a 14-month study of 10 staffed group homes in British Columbia. The book uses grounded theory to construct a theoretical model that speaks to the primary challenge care workers face each day—responding to pain and pain-based behavior in residents. It combines participant observations, transcribed interviews, and document analysis to develop a core theme of congruence, several major psychosocial processes, and 11 interactional dynamics identified as being fundamental to group home life. The study brings to light several neglected aspects of residential care and proposes new directions in policy development, education, practice, and research to create an integrated and accessible framework for understanding group home life for youths. Pain, Normality, and the Struggle for Congruence: Reinterpreting Residential Care for Children and Youth is a full and rigorous examination of the theoretical and empirical underpinnings of residential group care. The study—conducted during a time of heightened sensitivity to the rights of children and increased emphasis on accountability and outcome measurement—reveals a core theme of congruence, focusing on consistency, reciprocity, and coherence. The book examines the major elements of this theme, including: creating an extra-familial living environment developing a sense of normality listening and responding with respect establishing a structure, routine, and expectations offering emotional and developmental support respecting personal space and time discovering potential communicating a framework for understanding and much more! Pain, Normality, and the Struggle for Congruence: Reinterpreting Residential Care for Children and Youth provides professionals concerned with the development and treatment of children and young people with a unique understanding of group home life and work. From the Foreword, by Dr. Barney Glaser: I am honored and delighted to be asked by Jim Anglin to write the foreword to this grounded theory text... The purpose of this grounded theory is to construct a theoretical framework that would explain and account for well-functioning staffed group homes for young people, that in turn could serve as a basis for improved practice, policy development, education and training, research, and evaluation. THE READER WILL SEE THAT ANGLIN HAS ACHIEVED HIS GOAL WITH ADMIRABLE SUCCESS. . . . HIS GROUNDED THEORY TRULY MAKES A SCHOLARLY CONTRIBUTION TO THE LITERATURE.