NCJ Number
189642
Journal
Federal Probation Volume: 65 Issue: 1 Dated: June 2001 Pages: 18-27
Date Published
June 2001
Length
10 pages
Annotation
This article focuses on improving the therapeutic approach of juvenile court personnel by applying the results of a meta-analysis of 40 years of therapy-outcome studies.
Abstract
The American Psychological Association supported a research initiative that involved a review of 40 years of psychotherapy outcomes and their implications for direct practice. This research and its multiple findings are included in the recent publication (1999) of "The Heart and Soul of Change: What Works in Therapy." Although this research examined psychotherapy outcomes, the findings are critically important for the treatment initiatives of the juvenile court, since the focus is on behavioral change. This article examines the implications of the research for methods of achieving positive behavioral change. The research data suggest that the road to improvements is not long. After as few as 8-10 sessions, 50 percent of clients showed clinically significant change, and 75 percent of clients significantly improved with 6 months of weekly treatment. With most juvenile court programming averaging 6 to 12 months in length, these findings lend reassurance about the duration of a probation term. There was no one treatment technique that proved to be better than others, but effective treatment across all techniques involved four common factors: client factors (40 percent of influence), relationship factors (30 percent of influence), hope and expectancy (15 percent of influence), and model/technique (15 percent of influence). After discussing the details of these factors, this article discusses several issues that are raised for juvenile courts when these common factors are considered in therapeutic practice. 34 references