Detained juvenile delinquents frequently display both externalizing and internalizing problems, increasing their recidivism risk while undermining treatment motivation and well-being. The Good Lives Model (GLM) proposes rehabilitation that both lowers recidivism risk and enhances well-being, by promoting prosocial fulfillment of universal human needs ('primary goods'). The GLM assumes that attaining primary goods improves treatment motivation and promotes more sustainable desistance from offending. We examined the associations between changes in self-reported primary goods satisfaction, well-being, treatment motivation, externalizing and internalizing psychopathology, and recidivism risk in 62 Flemish and Dutch adolescent boys (ages 14-18) over time during detention. Findings partly support the GLM's assumptions: improvement in primary goods satisfaction was associated with improved well-being over time, and higher well-being was related to lower recidivism risk. Higher treatment motivation predicted reduced recidivism risk. However, path analyses did not support the GLM's assumptions: neither changes in primary goods satisfaction nor changes in well-being predicted treatment motivation or recidivism risk reduction. No effects of internalizing or externalizing psychopathology were found. While treatment motivation appears crucial for lowering recidivism risk, in our study it was not predicted by changes in primary goods satisfaction or well-being. More research is needed to understand the factors affecting treatment motivation.

This research examines to what extent siblings' conflict management mediates the association between parental intervention and sibling violence. Adolescents (Mage = 14.80) in Flanders (Belgium) reported on the parental intervention style their parents use, their involvement in physical sibling violence and the conflict management strategies they use when having a conflict with their sibling. Hierarchical logistic regressions show a mediating effect of siblings' positive problem solving, conflict engagement, and withdrawal on the association between parental controlling and adolescent use of sibling violence. Siblings' positive problem solving and conflict engagement also mediate the association between parental controlling and adolescent experience of sibling violence. Siblings' withdrawal mediates this association only partially. Siblings' conflict engagement and withdrawal mediate the association between parental non-involvement and adolescent experience of sibling violence. Compliance did not mediate this association. The results indicate the need to support parents to create a family environment where conflicts are managed constructively.

BACKGROUND:Despite its prevalence and potential consequences, sibling violence often stays under the radar in professional health care, social and judicial services. The lack of awareness and training related to sibling violence has led to failing to detect and properly address it. OBJECTIVE:The main goals of this study are to investigate how youth care professionals in social and judicial services address physical and psychological sibling violence, what challenges they encounter while trying to address it, and their thoughts on needed changes to practice and policy to reduce sibling violence. The study expands current knowledge of evidence-based practice approaches which are generally limited to social work and school counseling, by including youth care professionals in social and judicial services. PARTICIPANTS AND SETTING:Youth care professionals in social and judicial services (n = 13) in Flanders (Belgium) were selected based on their experience addressing child abuse and neglect. METHODS:In-depth interviews and focus groups were conducted, transcribed and coded using initial, pattern and selective coding methods. RESULTS:Consistent with previous literature, results indicate a lack of awareness of sibling violence in Flemish social and judicial youth care services. Professionals consistently expressed the need for greater awareness about sibling violence and tools to respond to it adequately. They prioritized a social service response characterized by a family-oriented approach rather than a judicial response. CONCLUSION:Professionals need information on typical sibling dynamics and signs and impacts of sibling violence and evidence-based tools to effectively address it. Given the prevalence and impacts of sibling violence, the development of evidence-based training and family-oriented prevention and intervention efforts are critical to reduce it, but such efforts are limited by professionals' capacity, funding, and time.

IntroductionAn upcoming offender rehabilitation model, the Good Lives Model (GLM), proposes that effective offender rehabilitation should adopt a dual focus: reducing recidivism risk as well as enhancing the offender's well-being. To achieve this, the GLM suggests rehabilitation should include the prosocial fulfilment of a universal set of human needs termed "primary goods." A focus on primary goods attainment and well-being is hypothesized to improve treatment motivation and achieve more sustainable desistance from future offending. Although this model sounds promising, empirical evidence for these assumptions is limited, especially among youth. MethodsTwenty Flemish and Dutch detained adolescent boys (14 to 17 years old at the time of their arrest) were interviewed during their detention using a semi-structured interview. They were asked about their well-being, needs and goals during rehabilitation, their treatment motivation, and their views on recidivism and rehabilitation. ResultsThe results show that a match between the boys' well-being needs, and the treatment goals set in collaboration with the institution could improve treatment motivation and rehabilitation efforts. The boys also mentioned other factors with a positive impact on their treatment motivation: increased levels of freedom and autonomy; having a future (prosocial) perspective; investing in a therapeutic alliance; and, working on individual factors (i.e., improving coping skills, school or work skills, and relationships with prosocial friends and family). DiscussionThese factors closely align with working on the GLM primary goods of "excellence in work and play," "excellence in agency," and "relatedness," which can be helpful in enhancing well-being and treatment motivation in offender rehabilitation.

WHAT IS KNOWN ON THE SUBJECT?: Seclusion and restraint still regularly occur within inpatient mental health services. The Council of Europe requires the development of a policy on for instance age limits, techniques and time limits. However, they only define the outer limits of such a policy by indicating when rights are violated. Within these limits, many choices remain open. Staff and service managers lack clarity on safe and humane procedures. Research literature provides limited and contradictory insights on these matters. WHAT THIS PAPER ADDS TO EXISTING KNOWLEDGE?: The study resulted in 77 best practice recommendations on the practical application of restraint and seclusion as last resort intervention in inpatient youth and adult mental health services, including forensic facilities. To our knowledge, this is the first study in which the development of recommendations on this topic is not only based on scientific evidence, but also on an analysis of European human rights standards and consensus within and between expert-professionals and experts-by-experience. This approach allowed to develop for the first time recommendations on time limits, asking for second opinion, and registration of seclusion and restraint. WHAT ARE THE IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE?: The 77 recommendations encourage staff to focus on teamwork, safety measures, humane treatment, age and time limits, asking for second opinion, observation, evaluation and registration when applying seclusion and restraint as last resort intervention. The implementation of the best practice recommendations is feasible provided that they are combined with a broad preventive approach and with collaboration between service managers, staff (educators) and experts-by-experience. Under these conditions, the recommendations will improve safety and humane treatment, and reduce harm to both service users and staff. ABSTRACT:INTRODUCTION: Seclusion and restraint still regularly occur within inpatient mental health services. Professionals lack clarity on safe and humane procedures. Nevertheless, a detailed policy on for instance age limits, techniques and time limits is required. AIM:We developed recommendations on the humane and safe application of seclusion, physical intervention and mechanical restraint in inpatient youth and adult mental health services, including forensic facilities. METHOD:After developing a questionnaire based on a rapid scientific literature review and an analysis of human rights sources stemming from the Council of Europe, 60 expert-professionals and 18 experts-by-experience were consulted in Flanders (Belgium) through a Delphi-study. RESULTS:After two rounds, all but one statement reached the consensus-level of 65% in both panels. The study resulted in 77 recommendations on teamwork, communication, materials and techniques, maximum duration, observation, evaluation, registration, second opinion and age limits. DISCUSSION:Combining an evidence, human rights and consensus-based approach allowed for the first time to develop recommendations on time limits, asking for second opinion and registration. IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE:When combined with a preventive approach and collaboration between service managers, staff (educators) and experts-by-experience, the recommendations will improve safety and humane treatment, and reduce harm to service users and staff.

This contribution analyses the approach of the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT) to means of restraint in residential psychiatric and disability care. Generally, the CPT states that means of restraint can only be applied in cases of acute danger, and if all alternatives have failed. Detailed and strict conditions apply, including for the duration (usually minutes rather than hours). However, an analysis of the CPT's country reports shows that sometimes longer-term use is implicitly accepted, first to preventively maintain order and safety in a care facility and second, to protectively safeguard the interests of the patient. Based on country reports and general human rights principles, this contribution tries to provide the clearest possible picture of the conditions for applying means of restraint and the required legal guarantees in these cases. Nevertheless, many loose ends remain. To safeguard the rights of patients, it is desirable that the CPT is more explicit concerning means of restraint when there is no acute danger.

Both self-control and executive dysfunctions have gained theoretical and empirical support in their relation to juvenile delinquency. However, the precise nature of executive dysfunctions is unclear, and recent models suggest a new conceptualization of self-control, in which executive functions play a supporting role. This research attempts to clarify the role of executive dysfunctions in juvenile delinquency and explicitly integrate executive functioning with self-control in predicting juvenile offending. About 34 boys in the juvenile justice system and 36 age- and education-matched control boys participated in this research. Computerized tasks were used to measure executive functions. Self-control and background variables were measured through a survey. No significant differences emerged from group comparisons. A logistic regression model revealed cool executive functioning to be a significant predictor of group. Hot executive functions or self-control were not predictive. Finally, executive functions were not significantly related to self-control scores. These results indicate a potential role of cool executive functioning in the explanation of juvenile delinquency, independent of self-control.

A recent offender rehabilitation theory, the ‘Good Lives Model’ (GLM), states that effective interventions should not only focus on risk factors, but also on improving well-being by meeting a universal set of human needs, such as relatedness with friends and family, inner peace and excellence in agency, called ‘primary goods’. Little empirical research however exists examining the GLM's underlying etiological assumptions, especially for youngsters. Due to their developmental phase, adolescents may have different needs or they may prioritize them differently compared to adults. Therefore, we conducted a systematic review of the existing literature on adolescent well-being. A multi-level meta-analysis was conducted to assess the extent to which the 11 GLM primary goods are related to overall subjective well-being in adolescents. We systematically searched databases for terms related to well-being and adolescence, resulting in 139 publications included in the meta-analysis. Almost all of the GLM primary goods were related to subjective well-being in adolescents. Some goods however may be more salient or manifest themselves differently in this particular development phase. Offender rehabilitation interventions should carefully assess which primary goods are important for the youngster, how they (try to) achieve them and in which way the goods are related to their delinquent behavior.

In criminal matters, the European Union (EU) managed to establish several mechanisms to strengthen and facilitate judicial cooperation over the years but does not clearly nor uniformly define the concepts of ‘criminal matters’, ‘criminal proceedings’, ‘criminal responsibility’ and so on in any of the cooperation instruments themselves. It is however important to know as to what the EU understands by the notion ‘criminal’ because Member States have developed specific rules in response to delinquent behaviour of minors, which are somewhat different from ‘general’ criminal law. The question arises whether the existing cooperation mechanisms only apply to ‘adult’ criminal matters or also include youth justice matters. This article therefore aims to find out whether a consistent and shared view exists on the meaning of the concept ‘criminal’ and to subsequently clarify to what extent the existing EU instruments in criminal matters also apply to juvenile offenders.

In each youth justice system, several age limits exist that indicate what type of reaction can and may be connected to the degree of responsibility that a person can already bear. Civil liability, criminal responsibility and criminal majority are examples of concepts on which age limits are based, but whose definition and impact is not always clear. Especially as far as the minimum age of criminal responsibility (MACR) is concerned, confusion exists in legal doctrine. This is apparent from the fact that international comparison tables often show different MACRs for the same country. Moreover, the international literature often seems to define youth justice systems by means of a lower and upper limit, whereas such a dual distinction is too basic to comprehend the complex multilayer nature of the systems. This contribution therefore maps out and conceptually clarifies the different interpretations and consequences of the several age limits that exist within youth justice systems. To that extent, the age limits of six countries are analysed: Argentina, Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Northern Ireland. This legal comparison ultimately leads to a proposal to establish a coherent conceptual framework on age limits in youth justice.

Well-being, primary goods, and delinquency in adolescents. Testing the etiological assumptions of the Good Lives Model A recent rehabilitation theory, the ‘Good Lives Model’ (GLM), states that interventions that work towards a higher well-being can reduce recidivism risk more sustainably by promising a happier, pro-social life, rather than just a less harmful one. Although the GLM theory appears promising, limited empirical research has examined its underlying assumptions, applicability and its effectiveness. Research into the GLM with youth is even more limited. Therefore, in the current study, we investigate the main etiological assumptions of the GLM in a large group of adolescents between 14 and 18 years old from the general population (N=5.776), by means of self-report survey data on well-being, primary human goods and delinquency. The results show that a lower subjective global well-being is related to delinquent behavior. Especially the primary human goods of relatedness and working towards a financially stable future appear to be important goals for interventions aimed at rehabilitation of juvenile offenders.

In 2018 voerde het Jeugdonderzoeksplatform (JOP) in opdracht van minister van Cultuur, Media, Jeugd en Brussel, Sven Gatz, drie studies uit met als doel de leefwereld, de levensomstandigheden en het gedrag van jongeren in Vlaanderen en Brussel in kaart te brengen. In totaal werden meer dan 11.000 jongeren tussen 10 en 25 jaar bevraagd over een breed palet aan thema’s. Jongeren in cijfers en letters. Bevindingen uit de JOP-monitor 4, de JOP-kindmonitor en de JOP-schoolmonitor 2 maakt de eerste bevindingen van die studies bekend. Thema’s die aan bod komen zijn: schoolbeleving, dader- en slachtofferschap, interetnische relaties, welbevinden, politieke interesse en betrokkenheid, vrijetijdsbesteding en genderidentiteit en -attitudes. Waar dat mogelijk is, wordt de verbinding gelegd met de resultaten uit vorige afnames van de JOP-monitor en de JOP-schoolmonitor. Dit boek biedt een schat aan recent cijfermateriaal over het leven van jongeren en vormt dan ook een inspiratiebron voor al wie over jongeren denkt, met jongeren werkt of zijn kennis over de jeugd in Vlaanderen en de grootsteden wil verruimen.