Relationship: The bridge to the delinquent child

Summary We have attempted to isolate a crucial component in work with juvenile delinquents and their families. This component, defined as relationship, is felt to be the link between the disorganized, infantile, self-destructive world of the delinquent child, and the organized, productive world of society.We feel that those engaged in either individual or mass efforts to help delinquent children and their families are not operating in opposition to each other. We feel instead that these efforts can complement each other when they are organized, systematized, and utilized along a continuum that has meaning for each individual child and his family. We have expressed the idea that this crucial relationship or bridge can be established, nourished, and built skillfully under controlled conditions by many kinds of trained people.The concept of relationship which is developed in this article is very heavily based on the extensive work done in this area by the following persons: Irving Kaufman, M.D., Harry Durkin Jr., M.D., Thomas Frank, M.D., Lora W. Heims, Ph.D., Dorothea Jones, M.S.S., Joan Zilbach, M.D., and Joy Rabinowitz, M.S.S.The author gratefully acknowledges his long association with this group and the opportunities to crystallize and utilize the concept of relationship building in his work with the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, the Judge Baker Guidance Center, the Roxbury Chronic Problem Family Project, the Massachusetts Division of Legal Medicine, and the Massachusetts Youth Service Board.