U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government, Department of Justice.

NCJRS Virtual Library

The Virtual Library houses over 235,000 criminal justice resources, including all known OJP works.
Click here to search the NCJRS Virtual Library

Anger Management for Youths: What Works and for Whom? (From Violence in American Schools: A Practical Guide for Counselors, P 217-230, 2000, Daya Singh Sandhu and Cheryl Blalock Aspy, eds. --See NCJ-185486)

NCJ Number
185499
Author(s)
Douglas C. Smith; James D. Larson; Barbara DeBaryshe; Michael Salzman
Date Published
2000
Length
14 pages
Annotation
Continuing concerns about youth violence, especially school-related violence, have led to a proliferation of anger management programs aimed at children and youth; despite the high public profile and strong professional interest in such programs, there have been few systematic attempts to evaluate their utility.
Abstract
Anger management programs for children and adolescents are reviewed, with the intent of providing school counselors with a sense of the types and content of anger management programs described in the professional literature. The review covers both school-based programs and those conducted in clinic, residential, and other treating settings. The summaries and analyses of studies include descriptions of participant characteristics, treatment settings, program content, efforts to enhance generalization, target outcomes and treatment effectiveness, and implications for school counselors. The review of 37 anger management intervention studies with children and adolescents over the past 18 years suggests some interesting trends and directions for future efforts. Specifically, the review shows that a wide range of treatment strategies fall under the anger management umbrella, most programs include multiple cognitive-behavioral components, and significant diversity in program content and delivery makes it difficult to adequately assess what works and what does not work. 61 references