Rules and conditions for teens living in group homes in the 1950's (or today, failing that)

[oldandnewfirm]

I'm writing a story in which the protagonist is living in a New Jersey group home for "problem children" (not necessarily delinquents) in the early 1950's. I'm trying to find out what life would be like for the residents of a group home around this time: Would they be allowed to leave the premises on their own, where would they attend school, what

Comments

[zinnea]

You might also want to look up terms like "school for troubled boys", "home for troubled boys", "school for wayward boys", "home for wayward boys" and so on. Include "juvenile institution" and "state school" in your searches as well.This is assuming that you are specifically looking for an institution for children with behavioral issues both within and without the juvenile justice system.

An orphanage is specifically a group home for children who have no parents, whether it is because her parents are dead or because she has been removed from them at least semi-permanently. (In the absence of other options, a child brought into the foster care system might have spent time in an orphanage.) If you're looking for this kind of institution then don't even bother with the phrase "group home"--as has been pointed out, that phrase wasn't in common use in your time period.

I don't know much about NJ specifically, but by the 1950s a privately owned and operated orphanage would be unlikely anywhere in the US. A possible exception might be a home for unwed mothers that places their babies with adoptive families and that would depend very much on local law which can vary widely between the states.

The rules your teen is likely to live under are pretty much the same rules most kids at boarding school would live under: there will be a curfew and a lights out time, meals will be served at specific time and your teen will probably not be able to make up meals missed. There will be a dress code--which can be anywhere from lenient to strict--and maybe even a uniform. There will be rules and limitations related to on-campus visitation (and these, too, can vary widely; anywhere from no visitors ever to immediate family for one hour on Sunday to anyone can visit during X hours and so on and so on and so on) and there will be rules about leaving the campus. If your teen is in a home for wayward boys/girls, he/she will probably either be forbidden to leave the campus altogether or limited to leaving it only with a suitable chaperone.

Depending on how specific you want to get, there could be rules about personal hygiene, cleanliness, what sort of reading material is allowed, how many hours of TV/radio the teen may watch/listen to a day or week, what sort of language is tolerable, etc.