Traditional Facilities Research Articles

Evaluation of alternative residential facilities for the severely mentally handicapped in Wessex: Contact by professionals and client morbidity

Data were collected on (i) the frequency at which various professionals were recorded as having contacted severely mentally handicapped children and adults living in residential care, and (ii) the frequency of recorded morbidity episodes of the clients. Clients living in Wessex locally-based hospital units, which were served mainly by local professionals who also served the general population, were compared with similar clients in traditional health service residential facilities. The results show that, in one year, clients in the locally-based units were recorded as being contacted by professionals at least as frequently, if not more so, than those in traditional forms of care; they were recorded as experiencing fewer episodes of illness and injury but higher numbers of convulsions. There are limitations in the measure as a means of evaluating the delivery of specialist services. However, the results do not indicate support for the prediction that the level of such services provided to local, dispersed, residential units can not be as high as that which is available to living units grouped on a central hospital campus.

An Alternative Setting for Community-Based Geropsychiatric Care

(1979). An Alternative Setting for Community-Based Geropsychiatric Care. International Journal of Mental Health: Vol. 8, Community Mental Health Programs for the Elderly, pp. 173-184.

Institutional alternatives to psychotherapy. A study of growth center users.

Are growth centers used as alternative institutions to traditional mental health facilities? Survey methods compared growth centers (N=426) and National Training Laboratories (N=108) participants with clinic patients (N=89). Symptoms, life stress, motivations for participation, process expectations, and various attitudes toward authority, time, and help were assessed prior to participation. Comparisons on degree of psychological distress and avowed motivation indicated that most who attend such activities do so for "psychotherapeutic purposes." Growth centers were found not to be an alternative to traditional psychotherapy, but rather an addition. Eighty percent of the growth center sample had previous or current psychotherapeutic experience. Of the people studied, most go to both rather than to one or the other, and from the perspective of the participants, the institutions do not differ greatly in what they offer, how long the process will take, or what goals will be met.

The School Plant as an Educational Instrument

THE CONCEPT OF FUNCTIONAL PLANNING of school buildings has grown and expanded with use. Not many years ago the term applied largely to the effort to have proportionately more of the total area and cost of a school building devoted to educational and service areas, and consequently a less proportion to architectural features designed to produce monumental structures. Furthermore, under that concept school sites are located, arranged, and sized for educational service rather than for the satisfaction of community pride. School plants developed in the past two decades reflect commendably that definition of functional planning. There is growing evidence, however, that this concept of functional planning of the school plant is being expanded to include consideration of it more specifically as an educational instrument. The best evidence of such emphasis is that teachers, supervisors, principals, and school architects challenge the adequacy of standard or traditional facilities for meeting the demands made upon them by modern curriculums content, methodology, and educational and social objectives. This may mean that school planners and teachers no longer will be satisfied with the evaluation of a school plant largely as an adequate and economical space and shelter for pupils and teachers while educational growth and development occurs. They will, in addition, expect that every possible opportunity will be realized to have the physical plant contribute positively to the approved educational process and to the desired enrichment of the educational offering in schools. This chapter will review the recent emphasis in educational research and literature on the desirability of securing, in school plants, optimum conditions for growth and development of pupils.