Healing in numbers: the power of the group for delinquent youth

Deviance can be contagious. Yet, for logistical and financial reasons, most programs designed to reduce antisocial behavior bring together deviant children, increasing the chances that they will encourage one another's bad behavior, according to Kenneth Dodge and his colleagues who reviewed research on this topic (See When togetherness can do more harm than good)

Enter Chau-Kiu Cheung and Steven Sek-Yum Ngai. These researchers acknowledge the risks of contagion when delinquent kids are assembled. However, they wondered if grouping deviant kids could help under certain circumstances. Specifically, they guessed that young people who have little support from their families and/or are very involved with friends might benefit from what they term "developmental group work" which aims to "restructure companionship".

Cheung and Ngai explain that developmental group work is designed to provide children with structure that they lack from their parents, and the social skills that their usual peers don't model. Unfortunately their article in a recent issue of Adolescence does not describe exactly how this is done.

To test their ideas, the authors surveyed 190 Hong Kong youths (age 10-21) at risk of delinquency. Confirming their suspicions, they found that developmental group activities were beneficial to delinquents who spent less time with their families and/or more time with their friends--but not necessarily for other types of children. Developmental group activities also seemed to help those with mild delinquency more than those with major problems.

It's much too early to declare developmental group work a success. The Cheung and Ngai study only considered kids in Hong Kong, who live in a culture that places a high value on group goals. Whether such an approach might work in western countries with more individualistic goals is not clear.

Moreover, the researchers' data only allowed them to see an association between group activities and decreased delinquency for some kids. Whether group work causes better behavior remains to be demonstrated. Still, the research raises the prospect that certain group approaches, rather than spurring contagion, actually bring about healing.

Reference
Chau-Kiu Cheung and Steven Sek-Yum Ngai, "Effective Group Work With Delinquents In Hong Kong," Adolescence, Spring 2007, Vol. 42, Issue 165, p. 151-165.