Effective sex offense-specific treatment programs consider their participants’ risk for re-offense, the treatment needs that will mitigate this risk, and each individual client’s ability to respond to treatment. It is now standard practice to assess dynamic risk to improve the overall accuracy of risk assessments. This training will provide vital information about how treatment providers can help their clients understand and address their dynamic risk factors and manage their sexual impulses and arousal.

This training offers practical guidance for using treatment to change dynamic risk factors in ways that can significantly help to reduce risk for future offending. It focuses on developing positive “approach goals” that build protective skills and address deficits. It further explores integrating information from a dynamic risk assessment tool (the Violence Risk Scale: Sexual Offense Version) into treatment planning.

Topics covered include:

• Therapeutic interventions that specifically target relevant dynamic risk factors/treatment needs.
• Applying information from risk assessments in selecting specific therapeutic interventions.
• Providing an empirically informed level of treatment intensity/dosage for each client.
• Review interventions available to clinicians working with clients with problematic sexual behavior.
• Using adjunctive clinical interventions into sexual offense-specific treatment as a means of improving each client’s wellbeing and responsiveness to treatment.

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Over the past 30 years, research has led to the identification of empirically derived risk factors associated with general criminality, violence, and sexual offense recidivism, and this, in turn, has resulted in the development of specialized risk assessment tools. Risk assessment plays an integral role within forensic mental health and correctional practice as it is one of the most important and frequent tasks required of evaluators, clinicians, and correctional professionals.

This training provides a foundational understanding of the assessment of risks and treatment needs in preventing general, violent, and sexual re-offense by adults. Presenter Katie Gotch reviews background information on understanding risk and risk factors, as well as those protective factors that mitigate risk. She explains how some risk factors (such as self-regulation) can be used in treatment and are therefore referred to as criminogenic needs. These can, in turn, be used to understand the role that risk and protective factors have played in each client’s life.

Topics discussion include:

• History & development of contemporary risk assessment methods
• Types of risk assessment
• Identification of risk & protective factors
• Examples of empirically validated tools
• Core components of risk assessment
• Conducting risk assessment
• Applying risk assessment to practice
• Special populations (e.g., females, IDD, transgender clients)

Developing accurate, research-informed risk formulations contributes to effective case planning, treatment, and outcomes. The training explores information that is fundamental to assessment and planning, including the roles of psychopathy, childhood adversity/trauma, and considerations with special populations.

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This training provides a foundational understanding of treatment for adults who have sexually abused. It is of interest to those who are newer to the field as well as those who wish to develop their existing skills further.

Presenter David Prescott describes the components of effective treatment programming and delivery. He outlines steps for understanding clients in the moment and helping them to find their own motivations and strategies for making changes to their lives. The training explores methods (for example, Motivational Interviewing and the Good Lives Model) that function as frameworks that practitioners can use to organize treatment. It also explores the role of trauma-informed care and discusses how agencies and individual professionals can insure they are approaching treatment with a high degree of fidelity.

Topics discussed include:

• Components of effective treatment
• Characteristics of effective professionals
• The importance of approach goals
• Motivational interviewing and enhancement
• The core principles of the Good Lives Model as an organizing practice framework
• Treatment processes and sequences
• Trauma-informed care
• Fidelity monitoring

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For many years, group therapy has been the preferred mode of treating adults who had sexually abused, quite simply because it is more efficient—in terms of both time and cost—than individual treatment. Today, however, we know that group treatment is about so much more than treating many clients at once.

This online training focuses on how treatment providers can create and facilitate high-functioning treatment groups that benefit clients and improve treatment outcomes. It outlines what works in group treatment and what the research evidence has shown. Areas such as group cohesion, the therapeutic alliance, and how member interactions deepen the group’s impact on each group member form the center of this training’s discussions.

Topics covered include:

• Group treatment as a safe space for making difficult changes.
• The evidence base that supports the benefits of group-based treatment.
• Essential elements of effective groups.
• Group facilitation techniques.
• Clinical issues, including topics such as “myopic thinking” and resisting the urge to intercede or micromanage clients’ daily lives feeling overly responsible for outcomes.

This training further explores how to build adherence to a well-defined, clearly communicated structure for creating an effective group atmosphere. It reviews significant moments that occur in groups and various scenarios that training participants can expect. Special attention will be given to the challenges this work can create for clinicians; for example, knowing when to intercede and when to resist the urge to micromanage clients’ interactions and unwittingly impair group processes.

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This training provides practical information on two components that often go unexamined: sensible approaches to community management and how to work with clients with special needs.

The first half of this training summarizes and provides information on effective approaches to the community management of sexual violence risk, with a focus on the most current approaches. Policymakers have historically attempted to manage risk by instituting measures of official control, such as sex offender registries, GPS monitoring, and residency restrictions. However, the scientific literature suggests that such measures often don’t accomplish their intended goal. This training will explore the strengths and weaknesses of the available approaches and describe the core components of effective management.

The second half of this training explores the challenges in working with clients who have special needs. It explores how the principles of risk, need, and responsivity apply to this clientele. It offers an overview of methods for assessing risk and need, and strategies for adapting treatment to special-needs clients, including the use of applied behavioral analysis. It concludes with discussion of balancing the needs and rights of clients and the community.

Topics include:

• The core components of effective community supervision
• How historical approaches have gone wrong
• Current models of community supervision
• Applying the principles of risk, need, and responsivity with special-needs clients
• Identifying what’s missing in helping clients respond to treatment
• Balancing risks and rights with clients and the community

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