The majority of youngsters housed at Residential Care Service are sent there by no fault of their own.

So claimed Derek Flood, acting coordinator of Residential Care Service.

"The vast majority of our kids come in of no fault of their own because in some cases there are things going on with their care givers which is beyond their control.

"People are loosing their jobs and being out of work puts a lot of stress on a family and some kids have not learned how to deal with the changes in the family and they start rebelling.'' He added that the kids are trying to cope with situations they are unable to deal with like the separation of parents, the death of a parent or care giver, or the fact that their parent is in a situation where they are unable to care for them whether it be personal or job related.

And that is where rebellion is born.

Recently, there have been stories of kids beating up and stealing from other kids whether it be the victims' grocery packing money or just the few dollars he was carrying while walking through Hamilton in the afternoon.

Residential Care has had a few fingers pointed at them due to the fact that some of these perpetrators were being housed at the facility.

Mr. Flood said few of the problems occurred while the kids were in their care -- "most of the time these things happen when the child has gone back home for the night or weekend.'' The facility is run by residential care officers which work on shifts 24 hours a day 365 days a year.

Each child is assigned a primary worker to make sure their needs are being met and a social worker.

And the service has several things in place to help guide the child.

"We are getting new programmes on line as needed and we try to establish problem specific groups. We've run an anger management group, a transition group and they are run as needed,'' Mr. Flood said.

He added: "If we have a group of children that are transitioning out we run a transition group which involves things like how to write a resume, how to interview, budgeting, banking -- how to get an account.

"Recreational Care, which falls under the department of Child and Family Services, provides care and protection for adolescents between the ages of 12-years-old and 18-years-old in a residential setting for children whose parents have died, whose parents or guardian cannot control them, and children who are being cared for by their parent or guardian who are either unable to care for them properly.'' Mr. Flood also said the children that come to them go through a five level programme starting with zero which means no privileges.

"Each level has more privileges attached along with more responsibilities.

The programme's aim is that when they leave us the older ones will be able to function independently in the household, taking care of themselves, occupy their time in a positive manner.'' Mr. Flood added that one of the most important elements for moving from level to level is good school performance. "They have to attend school and get there on time. We will take them and pick them up if it is necessary.'' He also said it is in the "settling in'' period that "we have most of our problems with the kids as some will get rebellious.'' On a positive note Mr. Flood said some of the individuals that leave residential care do go on to lead productive lives, receiving scholarships going to college, and getting jobs.

"There are several things we do to help the children that come here. We have peer groups where the ultimate goal is for residents to run the group themselves and we just started gender exclusive groups where the females and males can meet separately to discuss and deal with issues pertaining to them.'' Mr. Flood added: "We can take up to 27 kids all together and the length of time they are here depends on the level system. All the kids we have come through a court order.'' He also said that in the last year and a half there have been very few major incidents.

"We are trying to set up volunteer programmes but whatever we do has to be consistent because of some of the kids' backgrounds, and that takes quite a bit of coordinating but we are working on it.

"Kids today are coming in with more problematic behaviour due to the complexity of our society and amount of media exposure that the kids have does lend itself to more severe behaviour.

"The kids at Residential Care are not allowed to watch soaps, VH1, BET, or any R-rated movie as they are too suggestive. Kids are having enough problems dealing with their own sexuality to be bombarded with images that are suggestive, degrading, and sexist.'' Mr. Flood said another major problem that kids can't deal with is when their parents get separated.

"A lot of children do better when they leave here. We do not have a 100 percent success rate because we can't save everyone. Their stay here is just the beginning of a process that will continue after they leave here.

"We equip them with the tools they need to go on with the process and follow through with the goals that we have set up. We want people to realise the amount of work that goes on here.'' Mr. Flood also said that the centre had parent programmes to help them deal with their issues along with their kids.''