ABSTRACT
A half-way house is about the specific stepping stones from a one-way dependence — where children are dependent on adults who are responsible for their care — to a new situation where they will grow into a state of adult interdependence with other adults. The same is true for half-way houses for adults leaving long-stay institutions. In this case, 'de-institutionalization' is part of a re-educative process to gain experience of adult-to-adult interdependence. Adult 'interdependence' pre-supposes a stage of increasing 'independence' from home and parents as a part of growing up. There is a tendency to let the child flounder and then, when he is freshly labelled as offender, drug addict, homeless or whatever, new forms of 'adult services' or 'community care' come to the rescue. Ex-Raddery youngsters should come within the provisions of the new Act in this respect, as adults in need of mental health care.
