The Association Between Family Service Involvement and Treatment Success Among Youth with Sexual Offenses
A review of the literature on youth who have sexually offended, as well the general delinquency research, reveals that the call for evidence-based practices is increasing. Policy-makers, governmental agencies, social workers, and clinicians share an interest in funding programs, policy-making, and providing services that have been documented to successfully increase community safety by identified the risks and treatment needs of sexually abusive youth.
Description of the Problem
Generally, there is empirical support that treatment for youth who have sexually offended reduced recidivism, however, with the exception to Multi-Systemic Therapy, other modalities may not satisfy some definitions of evidence-based practice. Indeed few studies have systematically evaluated outcomes of services for youth with sexually problematic behaviors. Outcome studies are particularly sparse for youth receiving family-oriented treatment approaches, despite an increased emphasis on family-based interventions when working with adjudicated youth. Until the past decade, family strengths, family treatment components, or promising family service approaches have largely been overlooked in field research. Because youth originate from malleable ecological systems that shape, define, and contextualize behavior, targeting changeable systemic factors and strengthening viable assets can benefit adolescents and their families. As the field shifts towards community-based and family-oriented frameworks, evaluations of such services are necessary.
Study Objectives
Addressing the gaps in evaluation research, this study aimed to quantitatively investigate the usefulness of common approaches to family inclusion that have been argued by field scholars as “best practice”. Five distinct forms of family services targeted were: family reunification, informed supervision, multi-disciplinary team involvement, family therapy, and multi-family group therapy.
Research Questions
The authors investigated whether five forms of family services were associated treatment success and recidivism. The primary research question guiding analyses was, “Is family service involvement associated with positive short-term and long-term outcomes?”
Method
Upon receiving Department of Public Safety Institutional Review Board (IRB) approval in a western state and in collaboration with the state sex offender management board, probation files of youth adjudicated of a sexual crime (N=85) were retroactively reviewed by a research team. The Office of Research and Statistics furnished recidivism data three years post-discharge.
Measures were formulated from operationally defined constructs present in the state mandated standards and guidelines for treatment. Data on family service involvement, demographics, and other pertinent covariates were collected.
Independent family variables were aggregated to create a single continuous variable. Chi-square and t-tests determined significant bivariate relationships that were subsequently tested in two multivariate logistic regression models regressing treatment success and recidivism outcomes on significant variables.
Results
Findings revealed that youth with greater family service involvement were three times more likely to successfully complete treatment (OR = 3.1, p < .001) and youth in an in-home placement were almost four times more likely to successfully complete treatment (OR = 3.8, p< .05). Variables were not statistically significantly associated with recidivism.
Conclusions and Implications
This study can support service delivery modifications to be inclusive of various forms of family treatment within community contexts. Further, findings can inform conventional policy revisions that support resource detection to uniformly institute community-based family-oriented services.