Kristin Johnsen

Therapeutic Community and Community Education: - Client-based Research at Häkkinen Juvenile Home Kristin Johnsen

This research was a client-based qualitative research with a deep background research on therapeutic community end community education. The basis of the empirical research is Häkkinen Juvenile Home in Jyväskylä (Finland), which is an educative community that specializes in youth with drug with drug experimenting and addictive behavior. The idea of the research came from the researchers' common interest in youth work and substance care, as well as an interest in deepening own knowledge about therapeutic community and community education practice. The aim of the exploratory part of the research was to gain a broad knowledge-base of therapeutic community end community education, and to reflect the results of empirical research to studied material. The empirical research was client-based and qualitative, aiming to learn what the youngsters at Häkkinen Juvenile Home think about community meetings and physical activity groups at Häkkinen Juvenile Home. The success and feasibility of predesigned interview forms as an evaluative tool was also analyzed and evaluated.