Runaway behavior among adolescents in residential care

The study examines the occurence and multilevel correlates of runaway behavior among 1324 Israeli Arab and Jewish adolescents aged 11 to 19 residing in 32 residential care settings for at-risk children who completed a... [ view full abstract ]

The study examines the occurence and multilevel correlates of runaway behavior among 1324 Israeli Arab and Jewish adolescents aged 11 to 19 residing in 32 residential care settings for at-risk children who completed a structured anonymous questionnaire. Hierarchical Linear Modeling (HLM) was used to examine the relationships among adolescents' reports of runaway behavior, individual-level characteristics (age, gender, adjustment difficulties, victimization by peers and staff, and perceived social climate), and institution-level characteristics (setting type, size, structure, and ethnic affiliation).Overall, 44.2% of the adolescents reported that since their admission to the current setting they had run away or attempted to run away at least once. Inclination to more frequent runaway behavior was found to be high for older adolescents, adolescents who had been in the institution for longer periods, those with more adjustment difficulties, those who had experienced more physical violence by peers and staff at the residential care setting (RCS), and those who perceived staff as strict and unsupportive. Runaway behavior is positively associated with residence in Jewish settings (vs. Arab settings) and negatively associated with the size of the institution. The interaction between gender and ethnic affiliation showed that gender differences were more extreme within the Arab group than within the Jewish group.The findings demonstrate the need for an ecological perspective in addressing adolescent runaway behavior in the care system. It reflects a growing shift in the literature from regarding running away from care as a personal deviance and symptom of pathological behavior to seeing it as a phenomenon largely affected by the context in which the child lives. P