Intrafamilial adolescent sex offenders: Family functioning and treatment

The Impact of Family Service Involvement on Treatment Completion and General Recidivism Among Male Youthful Sexual Offenders

“…Youth receiving communitybased family oriented models compared to traditional treatment models have been found to have lower sexual, violent nonsexual, and nonviolent offenses posttreatment (Worling & Curwen, 2000). Other research reveals that similar programs offering long-term sustainable support leads to enriched family functioning, autonomy, and intimacy (Thornton et al, 2008). Furthermore, intensive randomized control trials have noted the positive long and short-term outcomes related to manualized family protocols such as MST (Borduin, Schaeffer, & Heiblum, 2009;Letourneau et al, 2009).…”

Challenges Redoubled: Contexts of Risk and Compromised Access to Services for Children with Sexualised Behaviours

“…(Jordan and Sketchley 2009 p. 5) Partly informed by this work, ongoing developments in clinical response to children with problem sexual behaviours have given rise to a broad consensus amongst clinicians that these behaviours are not indicative of a child's pathology. Rather, the behaviours are more usefully understood in terms of the context in which a child lives, and the adverse conditions that might have contributed to the behaviours (e.g., Smallbone et al 2008;Johnson et al 2007;McVeigh 2003;Thornton et al 2008). The scholarly and clinical literature on this issue identifies such behaviours as more prevalent where particular conditions of disadvantage also prevail (Veneziano and Veneziano 2002;Lovell 2002;Cavanagh-Johnson 1998).…”

“…These risk factors are also reported to have an adverse impact on the family's capacity to complete a program of therapeutic care (Thornton et al 2008;RaymentMcHugh and Owen 1999). Improved family functioning is a reported outcome where there is sufficient family engagement to complete a treatment program (Thornton et al 2008).…”

“…Improved family functioning is a reported outcome where there is sufficient family engagement to complete a treatment program (Thornton et al 2008). Yet therapeutic work is often jeopardised when families or carers are reluctant or unable to engage in the program of counselling.…”

“…Counselling is thought to be effective providing it is made available early in the behavioural trajectory, the full treatment program is completed, and family are engaged in support of the young person's behavioural change (e.g., Staiger et al 2005;Smallbone et al 2008;McGregor 2008;Thornton et al 2008). Despite these indications of therapeutic success, this paper identifies a number of barriers to Australian children with sexualised behaviours accessing the specialised counselling necessary for behaviour modification.…”