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 6: Reentry
3 Hours

TOPIC: REENTRY

Learning Activity: Developing a Comprehensive Case Management Plan

Refer to Handout: Case Studies

At this point in the training, I would like us to turn our attention to an exercise on developing a comprehensive case plan. Based on what we’ve talked about in this and previous sections—about assessment, treatment, supervision, and reentry—let’s go back to the case studies that we used in our earlier sections to complete the following exercise.

Note to Trainers:  This exercise is designed to allow participants to use the information that has been covered during the training to design a comprehensive management plan for one of the three youth described in the case studies.

• Divide yourselves up into smaller groups of (ideally) no more than 10 people. If possible, these groups should be diverse in terms of agency and discipline representation.
• Select a reporter who will be responsible for sharing the group’s work with the larger audience after the activity.
• Each group will be assigned one of the three (Mark, John, or Evan) hypothetical case studies that were reviewed earlier. Quickly re–familiarize yourself with your assigned case and—with your colleagues—design a comprehensive case plan that is responsive to the risk and needs of the youth and his family, and that builds upon any strengths and assets that have been identified.
• Questions that should be answered include:
  • What is your sense of the level of risk that the youth poses? Do you think that he is high, moderate, or low risk? What factors, issues, and problems—as well as strengths and assets—exist in the life of the youth and in his environment that lead you to your conclusion about his risk level?
  • From a community supervision perspective:
    • Where would you place the youth on a continuum of supervision? Does he need to be supervised with a high, moderate, or low intensity level? What information did you use to make your decision about this?
    • What supervision conditions (both general and specialized) would you use in this case? Why are these conditions necessary? What risk factors are they intended to address?
    • Which adults in the life of the youth would you select to serve as community support network members? How might you get them “on board” with and supportive of the management process?
    • What are some appropriate and positive approach goals that you would use in this case?
  • From a treatment perspective:
    • Does the youth need intensive, sex offense-specific treatment? Why or why not?
    • What are some offense-specific treatment goals that are critical in this case? Why are these goals necessary?
    • Beyond offense-specific treatment, what are some other types of services and programming from which the youth and his family would benefit? How and why might they be helped by them?

Plan to spend the last few minutes of the activity period preparing for a ten–minute report out to the larger group.

Note to Trainers: The report out should last approximately 30 minutes. With input from the selected reporters, lead the group in a brief discussion about the questions they have just answered.

You have all done a tremendous job of identifying ways in which we can tailor our supervision, treatment, and reentry practices to best meet the risk and needs of the individual youth in our case studies. As evidenced by this discussion, it is so important that we look at these cases in a comprehensive and holistic way to ensure that the offender is supervised and treated in ways that help him to successfully manage his behavior in the community.

Before we close, I’d like to mention quickly a formal and promising model for juvenile offender reentry and aftercare that incorporates a number of the things we’ve covered in this section. It’s called the Intensive Aftercare Program (IAP) Model and was developed by David Altschuler and Troy Armstrong about a decade ago.⁶¹ It’s designed to promote the successful reentry and aftercare of high risk youthful offenders of all types and includes the following key features:⁶²

• Individualized case planning to identify and address over time key services and programming needs.
• Continuity in case management and service delivery between residential programs and institutions, and the community.
• Close collaboration and ongoing communication between placement staff and the community.
• Formal transition structures such as step-down facilities and halfway houses, processes such as closely supervised furloughs, and programs to facilitate a gradual transition and reentry process.
• Small, IAP-specific caseloads that are designed to allow officers to meet and work with youth and their family members prior to release and to conduct significant amounts of fieldwork in the community.
• A balance of:
  • Intensive supervision and control mechanisms (like the application of supervision conditions that are designed to address the risk and needs of each youth, the use of electronic monitoring, and drug testing), and
  • A wide range of community-based programs and services that are meant to address the rehabilitative needs of each juvenile.
• Graduated rewards and sanctions to respond immediately, proportionally, and effectively to the youth’s behavior, both positive and negative.