The Good Lives Model (GLM) is a strengths-based approach that conceptualises sexually harmful behaviour as an individual's inappropriate means to meet their core personal and social needs. It promotes managing potential risk through acknowledging the individual's needs, goals and aspirations and working towards meeting these in safe and positive ways. As a specialist organisation working with adolescents who sexually harm, G-map has adapted the GLM for its client group and employs it as a framework for problem formulation and intervention planning. Using a single case-study design, this paper illustrates how the GLM can be used as a framework for therapeutic practice. The case study involves an adolescent male who sexually assaulted an adult female. G-map's experience of the clinical utility and strengths of the Good Lives Model are discussed, alongside an acknowledgement that the dearth of outcome research relating to this model is a limitation.

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As two of the constructors (B.P. and J.H.) and the evaluators (A.B. and H.G.) of the original Adolescent Intervention Model (AIM) model (Print and others, 2001), we are pleased to have this opportunity given to us by the editors of Children & Society to comment upon Steve Myers' critique of the AIM assessment model in issue 21.5 of the journal (Myers, 2007). Myers takes issue with the AIM model at a number of levels, and we welcome the opportunity to take part in an open debate about the importance of assessment of young sexual abusers, given the potentially harmful effects upon victims and the wider society if assessment is not as good as it should be. We have limited our response to the following areas: (1) where we feel we have common ground with Myers; (2) where we acknowledge that his comments on the model are useful; and (3) where he makes comments about the model with which we fundamentally disagree.First we will briefly sketch out what the AIM assessment is, the history of its development, the work that has been carried out examining its usefulness (Griffin and Beech, 2004;Myers, 2002) and the revision of the model (AIM2) published earlier this year (Print and others, 2007). Aim backgroundThe AIM assessment model was introduced in 2001 across Greater Manchester, as a response to the fact that professionals in relevant agencies needed an assessment tool guided by research and based on clinical judgement, to inform decisions they were making about young people who displayed sexually harmful behaviour. It was the first attempt in the UK to provide an inter-disciplinary and holistic model for the initial assessment of young people