65P
The Influence of Living Situations on Family Therapy Involvement Among Youth Adjudicated of a Sexual Crime
It is argued that sexual offenders pose an ongoing safety threat to the public, necessitating policies that mandate community notification and restrictive living conditions. Youth who commit sexual crimes are often not exempt from such sanctions, despite contention from field professionals. These conventional policies largely dictate where and in what contexts rehabilitative services are given to youth.
Appropriate service settings are disputed, and the field is challenged with balancing policy and rehabilitation research to determine whether residential or community-based programming is more effective. The field has been advocating for the inclusion of family therapy in both settings, but little is known about how these disparate environments impact family involvement. This study aims to understand how a youth’s living situation impacts involvement in family therapy, to better inform service delivery and placement decisions.
Methods:
Sample. The data were amassed through retroactive review of probation files of youth adjudicated of a sexual crime in multiple urban and rural jurisdictions (N= 85). The data were collected from the files’ cover pages, pre-sentence reports, treatment summaries, progress reports, and discharge summaries.
Measures. Measures were formulated from operationally defined constructs present in the state mandated standards and guidelines for treatment of sexually abusive youth. Data was collected pertaining to independent variables including jurisdiction, placement information after adjudication, change in placement throughout treatment, and the dependent variable involvement in family therapy. Relevant covariates and demographic information was also collected including type of sentence, adjudicated offense, and prior adjudications.
Analyses. SPSS was used to organize and clean the data, run descriptive statistics, test bivariate relationships, and estimate logistic regression models. Upon testing for assumptions, chi-square and t-tests were conducted to determine associations between the independent variables and family therapy, and variables that were statistically significantly were included in the final logistic regression models.
Results:
Chi-square and t-tests were run to determine associations between the independent variables of interest and the dependent variable family therapy involvement. The results revealed that older youth are less involved in family therapy than younger youth, t(83) = -2.0, p < .05. Youth living in an in home placement were less involved in family therapy than those in an out of home placement, t(83) = -2.2, p < .05. Finally, youth who changed placements more frequently during treatment were more involved in family therapy than those who didn’t change placements, t(83) = 3.5, p < .01).
Implications:
This study can inform service delivery by recognizing the differences in systemic service delivery between in-home and out of home youth, and acknowledging their limitations over placement decisions, providers can begin to implement family-oriented models more consistently in both settings. Research has recognized the challenge and the need for improving family engagement, and while these findings suggest that youth in out of home placements receive more family services, providers can begin to institute efforts to involve families in all placement settings, leading to improved care and greater outcomes for youth and families.