Correspondence in residents' and staff members' assessments of the quality of life of children in residential care facilities

This paper employs Shye's (1979, 1985, 1989) Quality of Life (QOL) model to examine the QOL of 920 boys and girls in 46 Residential Care Facilities in Israel, from the perspective of both the residents and the staff. Specifically, it examines the degree of correspondence in the residents' and staffs' assessments of the residents' QOL and the association between the degree of correspondence and the quality of the facility. Findings showed that while residents and staff made similar assessments in various areas of the residents' cultural and social QOL, the residents rated their physical QOL higher and their psychological QOL lower than the staff did. Findings also showed that while residents and staff agreed on the residents' QOL in the poorest facilities, they disagreed in the others. In the better facilities, the staff rated the residents' QOL lower than the residents' did; in the poorer facilities, the residents rated their QOL lower than the staff. These findings raise concern about staff awareness of the psychological hardships and distress of the juveniles in their care, as well as about their ability under these circumstances to provide adequate psychological care.