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The Long-Term Impact of Therapeutic Residential Care Programmes. A Literature Review for Mulberry Bush School.
A literature review of the research landscape on the long-term impacts of therapeutic residential care, produced for the Mulberry Bush School.
Key findings
- While there was a relative paucity of research in this sphere, it was expanding, and had done so significantly over recent years.
- Much of the research had been undertaken outside the UK, and the Department for Education noted gaps in UK research.
- Much of the literature emphasised the use of longitudinal studies in order to fully capture the effects of therapeutic residential care, with some using randomised control trials to improve the robustness of results.
- There were significant limitations to this research, such as selection bias and the lack of a globally standardised framework, making it difficult to ensure results were robust.
- There was a significant body of research focused on measuring the more immediate impacts of therapeutic residential care, which may be of use in developing a framework for measuring impacts over the longer term.
