Cultural Differences in Residential Child and Youth Care: Analyzing Perspectives

Abstract

In many Western-European countries, clients from ethnic minority groups form an increasingly large proportion of the client population of child and youth care centers. This development raises the question of how to respond to cultural differences between professionals and clients. In this article we discuss the concepts “clinical reality,” “world view,” and “acculturation” to provide a theoretical framework for studying the influence of cultural differences on the care and support process. We focus on Moroccan youth in Dutch residential youth care centers and present a case from our study to illustrate the theoretical issues raised.