Are Interim Care Orders Necessary to Improve School Attendance in Truants Taken to Juvenile Court?

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Abstract
Seventy‐eight children were randomly assigned to an ‘interim care order’ (N = 42) procedure or a ‘repeated adjournments’ (N = 36) procedure. Within each group, children were randomly allocated to an ‘interview’ or ‘non‐interview’ condition. Two outcome measures, level of school attendance and criminal offending, were used to evaluate the two procedures and the effect of interviewing. Interim care orders were found to be no more effective than repeated adjournments in improving school attendance or in reducing the number of criminal offences committed subsequently. However, a general decline in criminal offending, following the start of court adjournments was noted in both groups. Interviewing of parents had no significant effect in improving the school attendance of their children either independently or in interaction with the experimental procedures.