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The Successful Treatment of Adolescent Sexual Offenders.

By Rod Baber, LCSW 

Adolescent sex offenders and their treatment were chosen as our first "spotlight program" because this is the primary program around which Family Trauma Services originated. Although FTS began in 1993, several of the staff had worked together in a community based sex offender program for nearly five years prior. From that experience came several realizations that culminated in establishing the core philosophy of our program. 
The first realization was that youth who acted-out sexually exhibited many of the same difficulties as other troubled youth. Low self esteem, lack of judgement, poor coping skills and impulse control were traits of youth at risk. Traumatic life events were frequently combined with inadequate support or supervision to produce a child or adolescent who viewed their environment as hostile, their situation as hopeless and their ability to change as none existent. Another realization was that these youth and their families could make significant changes and that low to moderate risk adolescent sex offenders could be treated successfully in the home or community at less cost and with a higher rate of success than incarceration or residential treatment. 

A final realization was that the same model used to treat adolescent sex offenders was also effective with children and youth suffering from a variety of acting-out behaviors such as posttraumatic stress disorders, oppositional defiant disorders, conduct disorders, depression and many others. 

One of the basic concepts of Family Trauma Sevices' ASO program is the importance of working both internally and externally. By that we mean that youth who act out are driven by feelings and thoughts internally as well as circumstances that are external in their families, friends and community. The success of our program came from combining two effective treatment modalities. Traditional outpatient treatment (individual and group therapy) were combined with intensive home-based services to provide a comprehensive treatment modality that reinforces the strengths in the youth and their families and incorporates the resources available in the community. 

The Outpatient portion of the ASO program uses a cognitive/behavioral relapse prevention model originating from the Pathways workbook published by The Safer Society. That and many techniques developed over the years encourage youth to take responsibility for all actions in their life and to understand fully the impact that their behavior has on others and the consequences to them. 

Many of the youth in our program have been physically, sexually or emotionally abused. While not allowing this to be used as an excuse or justification for their behavior the ASO program helps youth to cope with these experiences and to find more effective ways to deal with them.

Outpatient therapy (individual, and group) tends to address the internal factors driving behaviors. In a vacuum, however, outpatient therapy is frequently dependent on what the client self discloses. This is frequently not the most reliable information in the beginning of the therapy process as many adolescents don't give their trust lightly and there is a certain amount of testing to see how much you know and how far you will go. 

Home-based services reinforces and expands the ASO outpatient program. A masters level therapist (HB-I) works directly with the youth and their family in the youths home and community. HB-I counselors also provide family therapy, case management services and make contact with essential services in the community such as school, jobs and probation . As many of the ASO youth do not have an available father, a bachelors level counselor (HB-II) is also used to provide direct guidance. The HB-II meets regularly with the youth and encourages them to find positive activities, peers and helps them to access community resources such as jobs and help them to achieve program goals. 
The FTS team coordinates services within the agency, the community and the family to provide a comprehensive service plan for at risk youth in the community.