Bridging the Islands of Society: Modeling Delinquency Prevention Through Optimization of Social Support

The book is based on academic doctoral dissertation and consists of meta-analysis of four articles. These articles are included as appendixes. The research draws on two surveys - quantitative and qualitative - of delinquent juveniles from Klaip?da region, Lithuania. The results show that reasonable number of families fail to provide children with support necessary for successful socialization, families of delinquent children are less cohesive and structurally unfavourable, where the balance of support and control is disturbed. Resting on research results, frameworks for social support inclusion in early and direct stages of delinquency prevention are presented. Three aspects of social support?s effect on delinquency prevention are distinguished: 1) social support requires involvement of natural network into the process of delinquency prevention; 2)social support, enhances the systemic peperspective in juvenile delinquency; 3) systemic nature of social support coherently supplements the practice of social work and provides clear outlines for its activities.