ABSTRACT
Working with treatment plans supposedly improves the quality of child and youth care. A larger scale study of the content of plans in several residential settings for child and youth care, working according to different models of treatment planning as far as group worker participation is concerned, is necessary to shed light in this matter. Working with treatment plans is unarguably one of the most striking features of the professionalization tendency in Dutch child and youth care. The chapter focuses on the meaning of working with these plans for those who deal with the young people in care on a daily basis: the group workers. It explores the literature on working with treatment plans. Treatment plans are considered to be of crucial importance for the quality of the work. Several advantages are connected with the use of treatment plans. The chapter then presents some findings from a small-scale study concerning group workers' experiences with and attitudes on this topic.
