 Know Where We Are Going
Adolescent sex offenders are a heterogeneous group. Because of this, individual youth will have different treatment needs. In our program we provide a number of interventions designed for a variety of treatment needs. However, not all youth need interventions in all areas and some youth will have significant treatment needs in areas that only YHA can provide.
Our foundational approach in treatment the individual needs of each of our clients includes the following beliefs and principles:
- Treatment is more likely to be effective when we engage and motivate the adolescent and the family.
- Treatment is more likely to be effective when taking developmental levels and other responsivity factors into consideration.
- Treatment is most effective when delivered in a style that stresses respect and hope and when the therapist shows concern for the adolescent and the family's overall well-being.
- Treatment is most effective when cognitive-behavioral in nature and focused on skills practiced.
- Treatment is the most effective when intensity of treatment matches our best estimate of the adolescent's risk.
- Treatment is most effective when it focuses on dynamic risk factors that relate to recidivism; sometimes these risk factors are primarily nonsexual in nature. Some adolescent offenders are best served through treatment with limited focus on sex offending-specific issues and more focus on those variables related to delinquency, while others have few dynamic risk factors that need to be targeted, and still others have multiple areas of dysfunction.
- Treatment is most effective when therapists do not assume the cycles of abuse or the triggers to offending, and do not consider that all adolescent offenders need traditional relapse prevention approaches. In addition, treatment is most effective when it focuses not only on what the adolescent needs to avoid, but also on developing approach goals for overall prosocial functioning.
Our Experiential Emphasis
The use of experiential therapeutic interventions with our youth is an effective treatment method that enhances standard cognitive-behavioral treatment. The use of experiential exercises can facilitate treatment, add new and different insight to client learning, and enrich the overall treatment experience. This is especially true when one takes into account developmental delays, learning disorders, and the simple fact that individual youth have different learning styles.
The Ancient Chinese proverb, "Tell me I forget; Show me I remember; Involve me I understand," summarizes the value of the experiential work practiced at YHA. Not all people, our clients included, respond well to traditional sit-down, talk therapy. Our integrated, holistic approach to treatment seeks to bring a variety of theories and models into the treatment process to enhance our youths' potential. Our experiential programming seeks to provide treatment using learning styles such as Verbal/Linguistic, Visual/Spatial, Musical Rhythmic, Body/Kinesthetic, Logical Mathematical, Interpersonal, and Intrapersonal. The use of experiential therapies has opened avenues for our youth to utilize all types of learning styles and thus have a better opportunity to learn and grow while in treatment.
 Our Clients are Whole People
Here at YHA we wish to help these youth recognize and work through their problematic behaviors but also experience and understand themselves as whole people with a range of strengths and skills, and not simply as sexually abusive adolescents. Beyond labels and far beyond the subject of sexually abusive behavior addressed in our treatment approach, we recognize and respond to the children, adolescents, and young people with whom we work as whole people, in which sexually abusive behavior or other forms of sexually troubled behavior represent simply one element of their makeup and experience.
Our program deals with many issues faced and experienced by youth who engage in sexually abusive behavior. It is a central tenet of YHA's treatment model that our clients are whole people, that sexually abusive and sexually inappropriate behavior must and can only be understood and treated in this context, and that this idea must be imparted to the youth with whom we work, their families, other providers who provide treatment and care, and the community at large. |