Effectiveness of cognitive behavioral interventions for children in youth welfare services: Training with aggressive children.

tim

Background: Child welfare services require psychotherapeutic techniques to meet their obligation to care for children with behavioral disorders. Consequently, to act successfully an optimization of psychotherapeutic care in child welfare services is needed. The present study examines whether the effectiveness of child welfare interventions can be improved by integrating the Training with Aggressive Children (TAK). Subjects and Methods: 12 children (mean age 10 years) diagnosed with conduct disorder or oppositional defiant disorder were treated either with child welfare interventions as usual or with a combination of these and the TAK. Negative and positive behavioral attributes were assessed by parents and teachers before and after the training. Results: The combination of TAK and child welfare interventions was superior to simple interventions in reducing parent-rated ‘social problems’ on the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) and ‘conduct problems’ on the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ). Teachers rated ‘peer relationship problems’ (SDQ) as lower. Improvements on these scales attained medium to large effect sizes. The combined intervention also exceeded effects of child welfare interventions in promoting competences. Parents noted an additional large effect in ‘prosocial behavior’ (SDQ), and teachers rated large effects on the scales ’empathy and cooperativeness’, self assertion, and ‘concentration’ of the Teacher Report Checklist for Social and Learning Behaviour (LSL). Conclusion: The findings suggest that an integration of the TAK improves the effectiveness of child welfare interventions for aggressive children.