Adolescents in residential youth care face complex and persistent challenges, including high rates of trauma exposure, mental health comorbidities, and poor long-term outcomes. Despite these needs, access to effective, evidence-based interventions remains limited. This thesis explores the implementation and preliminary outcomes of the Care and Development Model (CDM), an emotion regulation focused and skills-based milieu-therapeutic intervention informed by Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) adapted to a residential care setting.
Paper I presents a systematic review and meta-analysis showing small-to-moderate effects of psychosocial interventions on emotion regulation in children and youth. Papers II and III report findings from a naturalistic, mixed-methods study of the CDM across Norwegian residential units. The findings highlight satisfactory feasibility, acceptability, and therapeutic alliance outcomes, alongside modest improvements in adolescent emotion regulation and mental health outcomes. However, variability in implementation fidelity and several methodological limitations temper the conclusions.
Collectively, the findings support the potential of transdiagnostic, emotion regulation–focused interventions in residential care, while emphasizing the need for additional tailoring to enhance contextual fit, improved methodological rigor, and sustainable implementation that fosters the successful integration of key intervention elements into practice.