A House Burden Score: Measuring the Workload in Therapeutic Residential Care for Young People

ABSTRACT This article is about using data from the Strengths and Difficulties questionnaire to develop a house burden score as a way of measuring the workload of a therapeutic residential care program. The development of the score ensures that residential placement selection is based on empirical data rather than on the often-used criteria of ‘where is there a vacancy?’ It may also curb comments by inexperienced staff such as ‘our house has the most difficult young people, whereas yours are easy’. The aim of the score is to ensure that a residential program is not overburdened with too many children and young people with complex emotional and behavioral difficulties to the extent that this result is a sub-standard service for all young people.