Evaluation of outdoor education and/or therapy programs for adolescents with major difficulties : methodological and theorical approach ; Evaluation de séjours de rupture pour des adolescents en grandes difficultés : approches méthodologique et théorique
Adolescents with difficulties preoccupy our politicians more and more, and question different professionals working with them (social workers, psychologists, etc.). They essentially call for our society's attention through oppositional, delinquant, or worse, violent actions, less through the extent of their suffering. With regard to the observed needs, specialists try to provide the best care possible to those youths and their families. Child Protection Services (Protection de l'Enfance) identify children and adolescents at risk in their institutional or family environment and suggest placements and social and medical measures through Child Social Help Services (Aide sociale à l'Enfance) or Judicial Protection Services for Youth (Protection Judiciaire de la Jeunesse).The historical development of outdoor education and/or therapy programs in France and abroad reveals an growing interest with innovating programs intended for children, adolescents and families with severe difficulties. Wether anglo-saxon or originating in the antipsychiatric or judicial context in France, such programs share the objectives of offering a temporary removal from a pathogenetic environement to the adolescent, valuing their individual potential by « looking elwewhere », and remaining part of the youth's educational trajectory. However, in a social and economical context where the assessment of professional practices is becoming systematic, no scientific evaluation of such experimental placements has been conducted to this day in France. Educational evaluations have been led in Belgium, following a political demand, and in Switzerland, through a university study. However, some methodological difficulties limit the scope of such evaluations and their results; on the one hand, one has to point out the shortage of standardised evaluation tools; on the other hand, one should bear in mind the complexity and uniqueness of such programs as well as of the individual situations of the concerned youth. Our study evaluates the trajectory of ...