Working with families of juvenile offenders: Keystone in the inclusive process.

Abstract

Family and family relationships of those who had committed a crime is a key issue in the processes of educational and social intervention. We justify the importance of the family involvement in the reintegration of juvenile offenders who must serve judicial measures of final or precautionary internment to their regular family, scholar and social context from a community perspective. We describe the Program of Family Intervention developed by the technical and educational team of a socio-educational center of Palma de Mallorca (Spain). A work of reorganization of family and social relationships is made in this center in order to achieve new and more functional and constructive operating patterns among the family members. Other cross-disciplinary programs reinforce this work. This paper is a descriptive work in which we justify the benefits of the intervention from the Program, that has been designed and developed according to the Family Systemic Model. The families that take part in the Program value it positively, attribute improvements in family relationships to it, and highlight the evolution of minors on their own recognition of their role as skilled students. These teenagers cannot be treated in isolation if we want to ensure their reintegration success, but within a community framework in which the family develop a key role in the process.