The role of the corrective community method in developing selected social skills of its participants. A case study

The role of the corrective community method in developing selected social skills of its participants. case study. , the and the facil-ity, presented in the following The purpose of the to show the corrective community method and its importance for shaping social skills, as well as to present the results of the carried out in the above-mentioned organisation.


Introduction
Nowadays many young people experience deficits concerning the development of social skills within the framework of their daily activity. Limited re-sources and social capital they have at their disposal require corrective measures taken in their closest social surrounding, close to the place they live, in the circumstances facilitating the development of their personal abilities. In our country, the system of psycho-corrective activities addressed to children and teenagers from groups at risk of social exclusion introduced in the 80s of the 20 th century resulted in the establishment of different socio-therapeutic facilities. "Socio-therapy, referring to natural social situations, with their therapeutic elements, constitutes an opportunity for correction and enriching oneself with new experiences containing slightly different content about oneself and others, suitable to reality. New behaviour resulting from it, transferred to school environment, might be strengthened and consolidated despite an unfavourable family situation. In this way, the school environment and the socio-therapeutic group can become an ally of constructive changes in one's behaviour and attitude towards oneself and other people" (Sawicka, 2006, p. 82). Within the framework of activities undertaken in socio-therapeuticcentres, different forms of work and educational methods are used. In the case in question, their main aim is to provide participants with new, constructive ways of responding to reality and dealing with social contacts in a better way. One of those methods used in socio-therapeuticcentres is the corrective community method, and the Socio-Therapy Dayroom and Youth Club of the "Nest" Foundation for People in Need of Help in Katowice constitutes a place of research and an attempt to answer the main research question pertaining to the importance of this form of psycho-corrective work in developing its participants' social skills.

Definition of a corrective community
Educational methods are primarily activities systematically and consciously implemented by teachers, educators and organisers, whose aim is to meet previously formed assumptions in order to trigger off certain changes in the behaviour of people participating in the educational process (Okoń, 2016, p. 246). The methods used in pedagogical work are most often chosen by a given educator or establishment where charges are placed. The specialist literature offers many classifications of educational methods. Those deriving from social pedagogy are most frequently used. Among them are: an environmental method, an indivudual case method, and a group method (Górnicka, 2015, p. 118).
The corrective community method can be thus assigned to group methods, which consist in including each participant in a group's activities so that they learn cooperation and functioning in a group (Górnicka, 2015, p. 132). With the help of such group work, the main therapeutic objectives are realised. They are as follows: change in behaviour, values or lifestyle.The aforesaid method is primarily based on educators' readiness for open, partner-like and equal relations with their charges. It is crucial while working with children and teenagers as they constantly seek models and role models. In traditional pedagogy, which takes its beginning from the ideas of the Enlightenment, the educator-charge relation was characterised by a certain relation of a consciously acting subject influencing a given object. Such a pedagogical concept was called autocratic due to the educator's dominant role, which substantially limits their charges' independence and autonomy (Drzeżdżon, 2011, pp. 118-119). Responding to the criticism of authoritarian influence, the concept of anti-authoritarian pedagogy was developed by its precursors, Janusz Korczak and Theodor W. Adorno. In 1966, Adorno, an opponent of repressive and authoritarian upbringing, published an essay entitled "Upbringing after Auschwitz" ("Wychowanie po Oświęcimiu") (Adorno, 1978), which was a warning and an appeal addressed to everyone who cared about the concept of subjectivity, so that the situation of totalitarianism negating an individual and excluding them from social life on the basis of their descriptive feature never happened again (Śliwerski, 2005, pp. 202-203). Based on the historical concept of anti-authoritarian pedagogy and a humanistic approach to charges, using the modern corrective community method, it is important that the educator shall not be afraid to give up this authoritarian style of upbringing for the benefit of partnership. Such an approach means acknowledging charges' personal value, respecting their dignity, needs, especially the need of safety, respect and selffulfilment (Łobocki, 2003, pp. 78-79). This flattening of the power structure in an institution functioning on the basis of the corrective community method offers individuals engaged in this way better opportunities of benefiting from all their ego states and building an integrated Adult ego state (Berne, 1979).
A community shall serve all people engaged in the functioning of a given institution, thus both children, teenagers, and employees can participate in it. It gives them an opportunity to start a dialogue between people playing the structural role of, or, in other words in TA terminology, people in the position of the Parent ego state, and people who are structurally assigned the roles of the Child ego state. It triggers communication in which the Adult ego state is particularly activated (Widawska, 2016).
According to the concept of Erik Erickson (1997), young people have a bigger need of autonomy and desire to decide about themselves. That is why the opportunity of functioning within the framework of a cooperating corrective community is of a fundamental importance here as participation in it is completely voluntary. This rule of being voluntary constitutes a primary formula here and it must be kept so that functioning in the community and participating in this characteristic social training produces intended effects. Jolanta Koczurowska (2012) calls a community a social skills training during which its participants undertake particular roles in a group, which is connected with some duties but also privileges. During their meetings, the participants have an opportunity to bring up many topics, take decisions, solve problems, share difficulties and ask for help, as well as establish or change norms and rules governing a given institution.
An important feature of the corrective community method is the reality of situations an individual participates in. It means that the method uses situations experienced by charges in their everyday life, which are solved during community meetings. They provide the individuals with social experiences and facilitate learning. This method has its particular rules, norms, community process structure and organisation, a day agenda defined for a given institution, roles played by employees and charges, which favour the effectiveness of the method used.
The community method relies on certain rules (Koczurowska, 2012, p. 191): -rule of democracy, i.e. every individual and employee of a given institution has equal rights and obligations. This rule allows for strengthening self-esteem and building the feeling of empowerment, -rule of consensus determines all decision taking on the basis of a contract drawn by the majority. No decision is taken without the consent of the majority of people interested, which gives the charges the feeling of influence, -rule of permissiveness postulates first of all mutual understanding, accepting a given individual the way they are, unhindered behaviour and more tolerance towards situations that disrupt the order of everyday functioning, -rule of participation and community states that participants' affairs are the affairs of a given institution's whole community. The participant can expect understanding, care and help in solving their problems, -rule of realism lets the participants face real life situations, thanks to which they have an opportunity to confront skills previously obtained during social training with surrounding reality. In most communities there are also such rules as: complete abstinence from psychoactive and pharmaceutical substances, no violence, sexual abstinence and openness with limited trust. These rules should be known to all members of a given community and placed in a visible and easily accessible place.
The corrective community method was originally and, in fact, in many institutions, is still used as a method of addiction treatment. Apart from centres that deal with the addiction treatment therapy, the whole structure of a corrective community or its elements can be noticed in youth educational institutions, penal institutions, socio-therapeutic and day centres, schools or psychiatric hospitals (Tokarska, 2013, p. 13).
The corrective community method has a long tradition. Maxwell Jones (1968) is considered its founder. He wanted to implement new, better solutions for working with patients with mental disorders and he introduced group meetings. They were based on democracy, engagement and an opportunity given to charges to influence a given organisation and its functioning (Jones, 1968, pp. 18-19).
The way of functioning and rules constituting the core of the corrective community can be already noticed in the concept propagated by Janusz Korczak (2012), who founded his charges' upbringing on autonomy, respecting their rights and treating them as subjects and partners. Alexander Neill, the founder of a British School Summerhill, can be an example of a contemporary teacher who uses the community method. The school functions on the basis of the method of organising self-government, which above all (Neill, 1991): prepares for independent life, -respects the child's rights to be a pupil and above all a human being, -gives the right to take one's own decisions, and simultaneously teaches that despite young age, one can have an impact on something, and each pupil's opinion is equally important, -teaches responsibility for one's own choices and behaviour, and what follows, makes one aware of consequences of broken rules and norms, corresponding to damage caused, -allows to act and build children's and teenagers' feeling of self-effectiveness.
In Poland the first centre functioning entirely on the basis of the corrective community method was established in 1978, in Głosków. Marek Kotański, the founder of MONAR (an integrated system of preventing drug abuse, homelessness and social risks) decided with his partners to set up a centre, where people undertaking a therapy geared towards getting rid of their addiction were co-creators of their healing process and their rights were respected. Subjectivity, respect and mutual trust constituted the foundation of this community.
The corrective community method differs substantially from other group work methods. Using the terminology of TA, in centres which do not use the corrective community method two ego states are activated: the Parent ego statein educators, carers, and the Child ego statein charges. It is the educators who take decisions for their charges. They decide, for example, if a new member shall be admitted, what sort of punishment they have to receive for breaking the set rules, what their timetable should be like, how to share duties. In case of the corrective community method, the Adult ego state is primarily activated, both in educators and their charges. It is all the members of a given community who have influence on most affairs, they negotiate if there is a conflict of interests, and together they set behaviour rules (that are subject to renegotiation/re-contracting). The importance of setting rules and defining common objectives within a contract is particularly important for maintaining the I am OKyou are OK position (Cornell, Graaf, Newton, Thunnissen, 2016, pp. 192-193).
Apart from these normative differences, we deal here with the dimension of practical activities pertaining to everyday tasks. Community members tidy their centre on their own, they also prepare meals. The structure gives one an opportunity to actively participate in meal preparation, tidying up, and teaches charges how to plan a budget effectively. Such a character of the centre offers a sense of belonging and that is why this place often takes a form of the other home and activities performed there teach charges how to be independent. The third crucial element that differentiates the corrective community method is using a system of a developmental ladder. In this symbolic way, the system refers to the process of growing, i.e. maturing for the next social role. Stages or ranks in the hierarchy show which place a given charge occupies, how much work they still have to do, how they find themselves in the centre and how effective the centre's activities are. Gaining a higher position in the hierarchy might last a few or more months, even years. It is a given charge, who on the basis of feedback from other community members decides if they will do a step forward or backwards. Thus, engagement is crucial here, and above all, one's motivation. What is more, thanks to the opportunity to participate in others' life via regular community meetings, frequent opportunities to talk, to undertake activities, but also an opportunity to observe others' behaviour, an individual can fully participate in improving their own and their mates' functioning. It should be emphasised that the method in question, being a form of social training, lets its participants be equipped with new skills. Thanks to frequent stimuli from the environment, a given charge develops their social skills, learns to care about themselves and others, learns how to solve conflicts and cope in difficult situations (Tokarska, 2013, p. 29).

Methodological assumptions and research procedure
The corrective community method is used by the Socio-Therapy Dayroom and Youth Club of the "Nest" Foundation for People in Need of Help functioning in Katowice. The foundation has been active since 1992 and it brought to life the Socio-Therapy Dayroom and the Youth Club of Support and Personal Development for children and teenagers at high risk of social marginalization, and since 2015 it has been also running the Playground Workshop (Pracownia Podwórkowa). The centre is aimed at children and teenagers till the age of 18, coming from families entitled for social assistance due to caretaking, upbringing and household management deficits, especially from poor, families, broken homes, single-parent families, disfunctional ones, or those at risk of social marginalization and addictions.
The purpose of the study was to try to identify whether and to what extent the functioning of young participants in the corrective community method is relevant to the development of their selected social skills. In order to approach the main research problem linked with the issue of real role of corrective communities method for developing their participants' selected social skills, the researchers used a case study, realised from April to September 2019, in centres run by the Foundation. The method allows for the analysis of the phenomenon on the basis of an easy to specify case and offers an opportunity to understand its character (Stake, 2009). A defining feature for this type of research proceedings is the variety of research methods in use, which is necessarily linked with the variety of used data. Pattern matching and explanation building techniques were used to analyze the data. To determine the cause-and-effect relationships, a chronological analysis of the data obtained was also used (Strumińska-Kutra, Koładkiewicz, 2012;Yin, 2015). The research was conducted in the Foundation based on the analysis of existing materials, surveys, interviews with employees and vice-head of the Foundation Board. All the members of the corrective community gave their consent for the research.

Presentation of the research results
Work with charges in a given centre is based on the corrective community method. There are two groups in the Dayroom: a younger one (participants aged 6 to 11), and an older one (participants aged 11 to 15) and a group in the Youth Club (participants aged 13 to 18). It is worth emphasising here that the age criterion is not strictly complied with in the centre and the groups contain persons who are younger or older, and the Club is frequented by people who have already turned 18 and still learn. The community both in the Dayroom and in the Club is formed on equal footing both for charges and educators. In this way, children and teenagers obtain an experience of self-responsibility and also responsibility for others, having an influence on the surrounding reality at the same time. They can take decisions in many areas such as: they way the rooms they stay in look like, organisation of the day, meal planning and preparation, duty sharing.
The charges who decide to work on themselves by regular visits to the centre, participation in offered therapeutic sessions, fulfilling their duties, complying with set norms and rules, engaging in the centre's activity, get higher and higher in the hierarchy, which is one of the key elements of the corrective community method. The higher they get in the group hierarchy, the more privileges they get. These are, among all, birthday presents, attractive outings, Christmas gifts or an opportunity to go to a holiday therapeutic camp. A higher position in the group is also linked with additional duties which encompass control over tasks completed by other group members, shift distribution or controlling the quality of the meals prepared by a cooking group.
The position in the hierarchy is given already on the first day when one joins the community. For some days, a candidate for a charge watches everyday life in the centre and has the right to decide whether they want to stay for good or not. Similarly, permanent members of the Dayroom and the Youth Club have the same right as during weekly meetings of the corrective community it is decided if a new candidate for a member shall be admitted or rejected. Yet, the decision is positive most of the time. It means that participation in the community is voluntary, but requires acknowledging its rules.
Hierarchy in the centre takes different forms, depending on the characteristics of a given group. A younger group has an opportunity to achieve the following positions in the hierarchy: Guest (the lowest position), Larva, Madman, Chairman, Boss (the highest position).
Every charge is obliged to fulfil their duties, which differ depending on a position occupied in the hierarchy. A charge with the Boss degree is situated on top, that is why they have got both the biggest number of duties and privileges, namely: frequenting the centre at least four times a week, cooking meals for themselves and others on set dates, fulfilling assigned functions, -realising one's timetable, -meeting the centre's norms and rules, having three shifts per month, doing homework.
They also have numerous privileges, such as: they can use a computer room, they can leave the centre on their own, they have a priority as far as participation in various attractions and outings is concerned, they can perform all the functions.
The positions of Chairman, Madman and Larva have fewer duties and privileges. They differ, for example, by the number of shifts, exercising assigned functions and attendance in the centre. Differences can be also noticed when it comes to privileges, which get smaller from position to position, and which, like the interviews with the charges say, have the biggest value for them. Different duties and lack of privileges are visible in the lowest position of Guest. They wait to be admitted to the community and have time to observe their potential group and still learn the rules and norms applicable in a given centre. At the same time though they undertake, like other members, to do homework, prepare meals and do shifts. It should be added that the opportunity to use a computer room which was once considered the most desired privilege has lost its value. Since charges have their own smartphones, tablets and laptops, they do not need to use the centre equipment.
One can climb up the hierarchy ladder, achieving particular degrees of development, but they can also fall, losing valuable privileges. A frequent reason for losing one's position in the group is missing centre meetings. Absence results in not making obligatory shifts and not preparing meals, which makes the whole community suffer.
The centre also operates on the basis of four fundamental norms, whose violation can result in corresponding consequences: no verbal and physical violence, no sexual intercourse in the Dayroom, no stealing, -care about one's Dayroom place.
Habitual violation of the centre's norms leads to dismissing a given charge from the Dayroom or the Youth Club.
Every charge of the centre can realise various tasks for the benefit of the community, and their range is linked with their personal resources and potential. Performed functions take different shapes, depending on one's abilities and group needs. There are the following examples of functions that can be performed in the younger group: wheeler-dealerchecks the attendance, flower mancares about the flowers in the centre, badge mandistributes shifts, dessert mandistributes sweet treats to the members, journalistin charge of the room.
Charges are awarded for appropriately and diligently spent shifts. It can be an extra sweet treat, a day without any shift or a little surprise.
The older group, like the smaller one, is also characterised by hierarchy and assigned functions. Yet, it can be noticed that it functions differently and is organised differently than the younger group. Educators do not control so frequently all the functions and shifts as the very members within their group do it. Their positions in the hierarchy have the following names: Teenager (the highest position), Six-Year-Old, Kid, Candidate and Lazybones (the lowest position).
Since the beginning of 2019, there has been neither hierarchy nor function distribution in the youth club. Teenagers belonging to the club have frequented it for many years, and according to the conducted interviews, they obey the norms and rules, willingly participate in suggested activities and are trusted both by their educators and the Foundation Board. Making use of the possibilities the corrective community offers, they took a decision that the club would be functioning without any hierarchy and formal function distribution. Together, the charges plan and distribute tasks among themselves, thanks to which they are efficiently and effectively completed, and the club functions without violation of any rules. It is a crucial task for centres based on the corrective community method to engage their charges in everyday life activities such as: budget planning and reasonable money spending, organising and preparing nourishing and healthy meals, or sharing duties that regard keeping a given centre clean. Creating situations stimulating children's and teenagers' development are first steps towards their independence.
Weekly community meetings, obligatory for all the groups and centrestaff, play a crucial role. During these meetings, current and real problems of charges are discussed, a new week is planned, complaints filed and former arrangements modified (re-contracting). Group problem or conflict solving supports charges in their social and emotional development. That awareness of support, feeling of safety, trust and stability in a given centre have a positive impact on charges' development, at the same time compensating for their unmet needs in their home environment.
Community participation allows for the realisationof many educative objectives, among which the interviews emphasised: 142 Edyta WIDAWSKA, Agnieszka REIFLAND developing an attitude of mutual tolerance and respect, working on feedback reception, developing self-awareness, -developing an ability to express one's own opinion, motivating to correct inappropriate attitudes and behaviour, teaching responsibility for ourselves and people round us, preparing for independence.
It should be emphasised that an educator, who becomes a kind of guide, plays a very important role in every corrective community. Interviews showed the importance of this function and challenges faced by an employee undertaking to work with the help of this method. As the interviews pointed out, it is important to ask oneself a question before commencing one's employment in the centre: am I ready to reject an authoritarian style of upbringing attributed to the role of an educator for the benefit of a partnership-like, filled with trust relation with my charges? An educator's role is above all caring about their charges' safety, supporting and motivating them to change, as well as participating and full engagement in the centre's life, on a par with their charges. To make a given community work, an educator needs to develop a close, full of trust and safety relation with their charge. Very often charges arrive at the centre with a family history that can have a negative impact on their behaviour motivation and undertaken activities. That is why it is important to develop these relations based on trust and the feeling of safety so that a given charge feels the need to share their difficulties, can ask for help and is able to receive it. The centre's employees, like they say, should be full of empathy, open and always ready to improve their charges' quality of life, often rejecting theoretical knowledge for the benefit of their intuition.
Within the framework of the research conducted in the centre, a diagnostic survey based on the author's questionnaire was carried out as well. 35 respondents took part in the research, the data acquired from 29 persons were used for the final analysis. The research was conducted twice with the use of the same tool (once in April 2019, and later in September 2019), among the same participants in the Dayroom and the Club. The research was anonymous, and only the questionnaires fully completed during the first and the second research round underwent the analysis.
14 women and 15 men, aged 6 to 20, took part in the diagnostic survey. These are learners coming from educational institutions, beginning with kindergarten and finishing with secondary school. The group contains representatives of both the younger group and the older one, and people attending the Youth Club. They represent all the levels of the social hierarchy.
The aforesaid research attempted to show whether and to what extent, participation in the corrective community method is important for social skills of children and teenagers benefiting from this form of psycho-corrective work. Four key skill areas were taken into account: assertiveness, community awareness, social and cooperative skills (Martowska, Matczak, 2013), which were to be developed during social training undergone by members of the corrective community (Martowska, 2012, pp. 24-29).
In the first stage of the research, its participants self-evaluated in the 5-degree scale (where 1 meant the lowest level and 5 the highest) their competencies in the mentioned social skills areas. The research results are shown in figure 1. All the participants' answers for particular skill categories were above the middle of the scale. The highest result was for cooperative skills (3.76), the lowest one for community skills (3.56).
The second stage of the research was conducted once the children and teenagers had participated in a six-month period activity within the framework of the corrective community. It shows changes in those young people's self-esteem regarding their social skills. The results are presented by figure 2.
Also in the second stage of the research, the average of the participants' autodescription was above the average, while the highest score related once again to cooperative skills (3.95). There was a change concerning further order of skills selected in a positive way, where the children and teenagers attributed the lowest score to their assertiveness (3.65). Table 1 presents the comparison of the results coming from two measurements: the initial and the final one, together with the difference noticed.
During the research, it was possible to notice differences in the areas of particular social skills. The changes were also noticed by the educators working in the centre. They are not statistically valid (a t-Student test was carried out for dependent groups, where p > 0,05), yet they are important for social functioning of children and teenagers attending the Dayroom and the Club.   The biggest changes took place in relation to two areas: community skills (0.2) and cooperative skills (0.19).
Community skills concern primarily initiating and realising community goals and engaging other people in these activities (Martowska, Matczak, 2013, p. 52). Those goals realised during a given task, linked with the levels of group hierarchy, require looking at a given situation from the perspective of a bigger group of people and their needs (e.g. writing a menu or a cleaning plan) and an ability to discern the strengths of particular group members, so that tasks are appropriately distributed (not too easy, not too difficult). Everything happens while working with the help of the corrective community method. A constant possibility to watch the behaviour of other people, listening to feedback, learning about the needs of other people offer an opportunity to develop one's community skills. Cooperative skills concern interpersonal skills which facilitate working with other people, motivating them, helping and supporting them, mitigating conflicts (Martowska, Matczak, 2013, p. 49) and are realised by the members of the corrective community at the highest level out of four researched ones (both at the first and the second stage of the research). The very fact of willingness to participate in the activities offered by the centre is an important factor pointing to the "initial" willingness and readiness to cooperate. However, as the conducted research shows, participation in the corrective community strengthens and enlarges that area of teenagers' social skills.
The data obtained in the research show that both cooperative competencies and community skills are very strongly linked with the intensity of social training, but they hardly correlate with personality features. It lets us think that they are to a large extent dependent on relevant social experiences and susceptible to activities aiming at their improvement (Martowska, Matczak, 2013, p. 49). It offers substantial room for manoeuvre within the corrective community method, where training of two crucial social skills takes place. And as the conducted research shows, they improve (which is confirmed by the participants themselves and their educators).
The smallest progress was noted in relation to social skills (0.09). This dimension of social functioning relates to situations of exposure and being in the centre of attention (Martowska, Matczak, 2013, p. 51). Among the surveyed participants, being "the life and soul of every party" is not something they would negate, which is shown by both the first and the second stage of the research (stage I -3.75, stage II -3.84). A slight difference observed during the research was not perceived by the educators. It might be connected with improvement related to the aforesaid social skills (community and cooperative ones) and the very formula, crucial for the corrective community method, which avoids distinguishing anyone, and where the whole process is based on relations of two subjects engaged in it.
The research part pertaining to assertiveness showed similarly insignificant change of a negative value (−0,09). Assertiveness is defined here as an ability to give orders, express disapproval, convey messages perceived by others as unpleasant, confront adverse situations. As other research shows, assertiveness is strongly conditioned by personality and temperament features (Martowska, Matczak, 2013, pp. 45-46), and, what follows, it requires more structured training. Assertiveness training consists in practising strictly defined behaviour and building resources that offer an opportunity of a non-aggressive and non-submissive communicative reaction in the situation when our psychological boundaries are violated by other people. Proper use of assertive reaction techniques requires practice and a complex cognitive component. An assertive person should know what rights they have and should be able to define the rights of other participants of the process so that they can verify their initial assumptions during interaction. Therefore, it is worth organising this training in the way that ensures really assertive realisation of communication, with respect for the boundaries of a person practising their skills and without violating other people's rights (Wieczorek, 2011). In this case, the corrective community method seems to be insufficient to achieve the goal, namely to develop assertive behaviour among children and teenagers attending the Dayroom and the Club. What is more, a strong emphasis on cooperation and acting for the benefit of the community might significantly influence the occurrence of non-assertive behaviour.

Final conclusions
Thus, undertaking activities based on the corrective community method positively influences the development of community and cooperative skills. Buil-ding communal relations, where each member is responsible both for the space where they are (cleaning, cooking, planning time together, etc.) and developing relations (giving feedback, cooperation and sharing responsibility for realised tasks, supporting other community members) constitutes a crucial training of social skills. In order to combine this rational motivation with emphatic care about others or the need of stimulation, like in case of assertiveness and social skills, it is worth completing the centre's offer by soft skills training. It might lead to the development of the whole spectrum of social skills, so important for good functioning of an individual with a fully integrated Adult ego state. Creating a corrective community with its numerous though commonly established rules (contracting) offers an opportunity to develop the feeling of self-effectiveness among the participants of the process, but also facilitates the development of personal competencies pertaining to the ways and forms of constructive fulfilling one's personal needs.