Minors with Mental Health Disorders: Effectiveness of a Clinical and Socio-Educational Program

Mental health in young people is one of the problems associated with social exclusion. The project evaluated in this work was performed in the Juvenile Center of Berzosa de Lozoya, in the north of Madrid (Spain). This is a center for protected minors with mental health disorders managed by both a technical and a service team.

The technical team consists of a psychiatrist, a psychologist, therapists, educators, evaluators, and nurses, in addition to the director. This Center carried out a project with the aim of intervening in children's behavioral disorders and in the dysfunctional components of their psychosocial, cognitive, and affective development as well. The causes of these children's problems were analyzed from a multidisciplinary approach by all the members of the technical team and then quantified by means of objective measurement scales.

The purpose of this work is to evaluate the effectiveness of the project mentioned above. A pre-test post-test quasi-experimental study without a control group was designed in order to evaluate the effectiveness of the project. The development of the project includes physical and therapeutic resources, workshops, an appropriate residential environment, and an educational project. A clinical and socio-educational intervention program was also implemented for four years. The project was performed in three phases: baseline assessment, intervention, and outcome measurement. For statistical analysis we used the Wilcoxon and McNemar Tests.

During the study period we followed 18 children with an average age of 12.25 years. After one year, admissions in mental health units of the children decreased (p = 0.027). The need for psychiatric medication declined by 97.56% at a 3-year follow up stage. The activities of daily living (meals, hygiene, behavior, cleaning, etc.) improved significantly from the second year (p = 0.036). The Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) showed statistically significant differences in the third year (p = 0.021). Personality and emotional maturation showed statistically significant improvement in the second year (p = 0.009), as well as in social habits (p = 0.033).

In conclusion, the multidisciplinary approach of this intervention program implies a radical change in the plan of attack for health problems in comparison with conventional treatments. The results and effectiveness of the project can be described as spectacular.