At-Risk Juveniles
for inappropriate behavior (Christophersen & Mortweet, 2003). Through consultation with the
housemother, a plan was developed that merged JCG and a token economy. JCG is a system
which requires the adolescent to pull a job card, which contains jobs that take approximately ten
to fifteen minutes to complete. The adolescent is grounded from everything except school until
he completes the job. This allows the adolescent to control the time he is grounded. Along with
the punishment based JCG, a token economy was put in place in the home. For every day a boy
did not receive a job card, he received one token. The tokens could be cashed in on Saturday for
prizes.
Findings
The plan was implemented in the summer of 2005. There was an initial increase in
inappropriate behaviors, but within two days the problem behaviors were significantly reduced.
Unfortunately, the plan was not maintained past the summer of 2005 and the boys’ problem
behaviors returned. This resulted in the housemother requesting additional consultation and the
plan being re-implemented in the summer of 2006. The same reduction of problem behavior was
observed. However, in the second implementation, there was no initial increase in problem
behaviors.
4
Convention