Preventing and Treating Adolescent Violence and Delinquent Behavior

This training provides insight into how and why some adolescents engage in violence and other delinquent behavior. It describes empirically based pathways to offending and examines its sociocultural context, specifically addressing how individual development unfolds within an ecological niche and how this affects behaviors such as juvenile delinquency and violence. 

Innovative Approaches to Therapy for Young People Who Sexually Abuse

Young people with a history of sexually harmful behaviors tend to display a striking lack of self-regulation and relationship-building skills. In this workshop, the presenters first explore two treatment approaches: Dialectical Behavior Therapy and multi-sensory interventions employed in recreational therapy. They then introduce workshop participants to a suite of interventions that are based on those approaches and can be used to infuse group-based and individual therapy sessions with effective, ap

Evidence-Informed Treatment of Compulsive Sexual Behavior Disorders: A Strengths-Based Approach

Compulsive Sexual Behavior Disorder (CSBD) appears in the International Classification of Diseases – 11 (ICD-11) as an impulse control disorder and is characterized by a persistent pattern of failure to control intense, repetitive sexual impulses, urges, and behaviors. In this training, Drs Kingston and Marshall will present new data relevant to the assessment and treatment of CSBD among individuals convicted of sexual offending and offer new, evidence-informed treatment approaches.

Evaluating and Writing Reports on Adults Who Have Sexually Offended

This training will help you understand how to integrate your knowledge of actuarial risk assessments, the principles of risk, need, and responsivity, motivational interviewing, and report-writing skills into a comprehensive, ethical psychosexual evaluation report. Evaluations can be necessary at various points in the criminal justice process and for many reasons.

Treating Intimate Partner Violence

This training looks at important considerations when working with clients who perpetrate IPV while ensuring the safety of those suffering the abuse. The session will explore the definitions and dynamics of IPV and domestic violence and review the guiding principles of effective intervention. It provides prevalence statistics and dispels myths about IPV. Treatment approaches will be introduced, intended to end the harmful behavior, but always with the goal of applying measures that will protect the victim from further harm.

Online Training: Assessing Adolescents Who Have Sexually Abused

The training will provide an introduction to and overview of the contemporary process of sexual risk assessment for young people who engaged in sexually abusive behavior, including the necessity of a comprehensive assessment process. It will review types of assessment, the two primary approaches to risk assessment, and the most commonly used assessments in assessing sexual risk in adolescents (and children), and will also look at the nature of and empirical support for both risk factors and juvenile risk assessment instruments. Importantly, the training will emphasize the need for sensitivity to both context and developmental factors in evaluating children and adolescents, and the goal of recognizing the young person as a whole person and placing sexually problematic behavior into the context of both their psychosocial history and current psychosocial functioning. Understanding both the weaknesses and the strengths of the risk assessment process, the training will also highlight the capacity and value of structured risk assessment instruments in helping to understand the nature and circumstances of risk for assessed individuals, as well as factors and circumstances that protect against risk, and their value as tools for treatment planning and case management.  

Online Training: Helping Adolescents Develop into Sexually Healthy Adults

Social isolation, loneliness, and difficulty fitting into social settings and networks are everyday experiences in the lives of adolescents. Many adolescents have given up hope of having truly fulfilling sexual relationships when they are adults. This training offers professionals who work with adolescents ways to talk with them about sex and sexuality and help them develop and practice the skills necessary for developing into sexually healthy adults. It addresses topics rarely discussed in programs for adolescents: the boundaries of flirting on- and off-line; what informed consent for sex is and how it works; relevant knowledge of how the body works; appropriate language for communicating about sex. Adolescents’ understanding of what is and isn’t acceptable and legal is vitally important for their future success in sexual relationships

Online Training: Compassion Focused Therapy In Forensic Practice

This training on the forensic application of CFT begins with a compassionate understanding of the origins of harmful behavior. It explores how one task of forensic practice is helping clients reimagine their sense of guilt within the context of compassionate motivations (for example, feeling bad about one’s actions rather than about one’s self and building on one’s inherent motivation to live amicably within society). The training next addresses the application of CFT to those whose crimes cause significant harm to others. It guides professionals in considering a trauma-informed approach to case formulation and draws on a compassionate understanding of the difficulties that can emerge from the survival strategies that human beings deploy under extreme adversity. Finally, the training addresses the importance of self-compassion for professional self-care in order to facilitate a compassionate (and sustainable) context for treatment

Online Training: Cultural Humility in Correctional Assessment and Treatment

Sociocultural factors in the assessment and treatment of individuals who sexually offend are important to examine. Awareness of implicit biases and the cultural competence of the therapist are essential in ethical treatment. Cultural humility is the ability to maintain an interpersonal stance that is other-oriented in relation to aspects of cultural identity that are more important to the client. Participants will become informed of cultural considerations in the assessment and treatment. This workshop will assist participants in identifying cultural factors (i.e., racial/ethnicity, language, religion, gender/gender identity, sexual orientation, and disability) during assessment to better inform treatment and risk management recommendations.