[Violence in residential care: a retrospective study from a psychotraumatological perspective]

Commissioned by the victims-organisation 'Weißer Ring', we conducted 130 interviews (34% female, 66% male, medium age of 53.6 years) during a period of 12 months (March 2011-March 2012). All of them reported that they had been traumatised children in residential care (1946-1975: 70%, 1976-1990: 25%). The interviews primarily aimed at providing expert estimates of the consequences of individual traumas in order to establish a valid basis for compensation. The later evaluation of the interviews allows insight in to forms and quantity of subjective experiences of trauma and of their consequences for later life; although-due to the sampling procedures-no reliable generalisations about the entire system of Social Pedagogy of the City of Vienna are possible. All 130 one-hour long, clinical-biographic interviews were conducted by the same expert (who has qualifications in general and in adolescent psychiatry).

98.5% report experiences of psychic, 96.2% of bodily and 46.9% of sexual violence. 45.5% also report some positive experiences (independent of the form of experienced violence). There are significantly more reports about the frequency of physical violence during 1946-1975, however not about other forms of violence than from the later years. Problems in later life emerge more frequently after experiences of sexual violence, such as instable career trajectories, instable partnerships, psychopathological symptoms and severe turbulences in one's life history. The experiences of physical violence correlate significantly higher with instable career trajectories and (not significantly) with criminal tendencies. The frequency of later psychiatric care is related to the length of time spent in residential care (but not significantly).