This training will provide an overview of risk assessment for general, violent, and sexual re-offense by adults. It will be of interest to those who are newer to the field as well as those who wish to develop their existing skills further.
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 session will provide a comprehensive overview of the history and development of contemporary risk assessment, as well as the different types of risk assessment tools and the core components of the risk assessment process. The roles of psychopathy, childhood adversity/trauma, and protective factors as related to risk assessment will also be discussed. Utilization of risk assessment with special populations (e.g., females, IDD) will be examined and practical strategies for applying risk assessment within the case/treatment/risk management planning process will be provided.
Topics to be covered include:
1) History & development of contemporary risk assessment methods
2) Types of risk assessment
3) Identification of risk & protective factors
4) Examples of empirically validated tools
5) Core components of risk assessment
6) Conducting risk assessment
7) Applying risk assessment to practice