Managing Intergroup conflicts within residential institutes for handicapped children and adolescents

Over the past few years, care for Quality has become a major concern in health care. This quality is threatened by conflicts which can overburden the quality of the organisation and the human subjective feeling of well-being. How to cope with conflicts among professionals is one of the most pressing questions in practice. There is a large need for research into the managing of conflicts within these teams. The global objective of managing conflict is to limit the cooperation problems and to stimulate resposabilities and independant workability of the professionals. The contingency theory offers an intersting framework for the study of the influence of various techniques and styles for managing conflict. We have three objectives: (1) get a picture of the situation in the residential care, determine the (2) the effects which occur as a consequence of a training focussed on managing conflicts and (3) supervision concerning conflicts and the continuation of the quality of care. We will obtain an insight into the present situation after a thorough literature study and strategies based on the CIT. After this a field experiment (non-equivalent control group design) is set up. The measurements take place immediatly before and after the regulated intervention. The post-test measurement is repeated after one year for examining the long term effects. To determine the effects of regulated group interventionon the managing conflicts we will use testes, questionnaires, interview, observations, selfreporting methods and training evaluation methods. The study will take place at 5 large scale institutions for handicapped children and adolescents.