Effect of Social Skills Training on Juveniles’ Psychological Problems in a Detention Center in Ghana

Background: In this world it is important to train children to acquire useful skills such that they would take care of themselves tomorrow and show good behaviors. The world can only be a peaceful and developed place if children are trained to acquire social skills that are useful. Therefore, to determine whether social skills training would change juvenile misbehavior this study was conducted.

Methods: This study was a quasi-experimental design. The sample was drawn from a population of 97 juveniles in detention at a Senior Correctional Center (formally known as Borstal Institute) in Accra, Ghana. The sample was 50 juveniles in a Correctional Center. The outcome measure was Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI). Test scores on delinquent behavior were compared across the two groups; (1) 25 juveniles who underwent social skills training (SST) and (2) 25 matched control group of juveniles who did not undergo SST. Participants in the training group underwent a one-month SST. The training sessions lasted for 60 minutes and they met three times a week for four weeks. Data collection was from May 2017 to August 2017.

Results: The results of the experimental group showed that 8 subscales somatization (df = 48; t = 2.39; p < .025), obsessive-compulsion (df = 48; t = 4.32; p < .001), depression (df = 48; t = 4.13; p <.001), anxiety (df = 48; t = 3.80; p < .001), hostility (df = 48; t = 3.74; p <. 001), phobic anxiety (df = 48; t = 3.80; ρ < .001), paranoid ideation (df = 48; t = 2.46; p < .021), and Psychoticism (df = 48; t = 2.28; p < .032) to have statistically significant differences.

Conclusion: This study found that out of the 9 subscales used only 1 scale was not statistically significant for the experimental group. This study provided evidence indicating juveniles who underwent social skills training (SST) had improvement in their social skills as compared to their colleagues who did not have such training.