Comprehensive Service Delivery With a Continuum of Care (From Juvenile Sexual Offending: Causes, Consequences, and Correction, P 211-218, 1997, Gail Ryan and Sandy Lane, eds. -- See NCJ-171449)

• NCJ Number: 171462
• Author(s): S Bengis
• Date Published: 1997
• Length: 8 pages
• Sale Source: Jossey-Bass Publishers
• Publication Type: Issue Overview
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

Victim protection, legal accountability, specialized diagnosis, and group treatment are the four fundamental operating principles that have guided practitioners who treat juvenile sex offenders; for these approaches to be effective, however, they must be implemented across a carefully constructed service delivery system with a continuum of care that guarantees both a range of residential and outpatient alternatives and a consistent therapeutic approach across the treatment continuum.

Abstract

A comprehensive service delivery system with a continuum of care should include the following components: locked residential treatment facilities; unlocked staff-secure residential treatment units; alternative community-based living environments (foster care, group living homes, mentor programs, or supervised apartments); outpatient groups, day programs, and special education schools; and diagnostic centers and services specifically designed to provide sex offender-specific as well as traditional diagnostic assessments. This same treatment continuum should be replicated for developmentally disabled clients who have sexually offended. A continuum of services must implement and reinforce a consistent treatment orientation throughout its network. Even with a specialized approach that is consistently implemented over time by treatment staff whom these youth know and trust, these young offenders have great difficulty in modifying deeply imprinted behavioral responses. To avoid regression and new abusive behavior, these youth need to have their new behaviors and new coping mechanisms reinforced repeatedly in a consistent and predictable manner. In order to create all of the components of the care continuum, many States need only to redesign portions of their existing delivery systems. By allocating resources to training and evaluation as well as by mandating offense-specific treatment, they can address the sexually abusive behaviors of this client population directly and specifically during adolescence, with a better prognosis and fewer victims. 8 references