Outreach settings offer practitioners the advantage of spending time with the young person in a variety of natural contexts in which anger management skills are tested. Workers can observe young people responding to stressors that arise naturally in their daily life and make accurate and context relevant assessments of their abilities.

Clinical settings provide a safe and contained space for young people to work through issues associated with anger-related issues and to make a concentrated effort to learn the skills required for better emotional regulation.

Day programs are safe but (not entirely private) spaces that young people can access as the need arises.  This means young people might choose to attend to find relief from particular stressors and emergence of anger before they become overwhelming.

Open access day programs are contained environments offering young people the chance to participate in an unstructured way, sometimes for extended periods. This offers practitioners the advantage of spending time with the young person and witnessing the way they respond to particular stressors. Both strengths and limitations can be recognised and anger management skills can be tested.

There is also an opportunity to turn day programs into ‘closed environments’ (access only for select clients) to conduct specific programming. This might involve groupwork with the aim of building emotional regulation skills of clients.

Residential service settings offer practitioners the advantage of directly observing young people using various behavioural strategies in an effort to manage their anger, and to provide clear, predictable and respectful feedback as soon as these are observed.

It is important to note however that residential settings alter the presence of contextual stressors that may trigger problematic emotions, and change the range of anger management strategies that may be available. In terms of contextual stressors for example, although young people are removed from stressors in their natural environments that may exacerbate anger (e.g. conflict in the family home) they may also be exposed to new stressors or challenging situations such as the constant presence of other young people and the rules and regulations of the residential unit.