CENTER FOR SEX OFFENDER MANAGEMENT
The Effective Management of Juvenile Sex Offenders in the Community
A Training Curriculum

 A Project of the Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice

 

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Section 4: Treatment
2 Hours

TOPIC: TREATMENT

Introduction

As you are all aware, treatment is a key component of a comprehensive approach to juvenile sex offender management. So, over the next couple of hours, I am going to highlight some of the key issues involving treatment interventions for sexually abusive youth.

The goal of this component of the training is not to make specialized clinicians out of any of you, or to go into great detail about specific aspects of treatment. Rather, the aim is to provide you with a broad overview of treatment for these youth, and to give you a sense for some of the emerging research and practice relative to juvenile sex offender treatment.

We will begin by discussing trends specifically related to the availability of specialized programs for juvenile sex offenders, as well as some changes that have occurred in the juvenile justice landscape that relate to rehabilitation overall. Then I will provide you with the “big picture” of what juvenile sex offender treatment often “looks like,” by highlighting the common goals of treatment and the underlying frameworks and modalities that are often used to help youth and their families achieve these goals. After that, we will review the areas that are typically targeted in juvenile sex offender treatment programs. Before wrapping up this section, I will draw your attention to some areas that pose challenges to practitioners in the field and, in some instances, are very controversial. And finally, we will end with a brief synopsis of some of the follow-up data and treatment outcome literature for sexually abusive youth.

Goals

At the end of this section of the curriculum, participants will be able to understand:

• National trends relative to treatment programming for juvenile sex offenders;
• How changes in the juvenile justice system in recent decades have affected intervention approaches for juvenile sex offenders;
• Common components and targets of juvenile sex offender treatment, including treatment goals, program philosophies and theoretical models, and treatment modalities;
• Challenges and controversies related to juvenile sex offender treatment; and
• What the current available literature tells us about treatment outcomes for juvenile sex offenders.