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RESEARCH
Risk assessment tools are essential to the treatment of and effective intervention with individuals who have engaged in PSB. Sandy Jung and Mackenzie Thomas have developed a compendium of risk assessment instruments for white male youths (ages 12-18 years) when they have engaged in PSB. The authors note that a key goal of using a risk tool is to ensure a research informed approach to assessing and managing risk. They also note that each of these tools is infused with the principles of risk, need, and responsivity. This helps to ensure that assessments take into account protective factors as a focus for strengthening in any treatment or intervention process.
The tools listed by the authors were divided into actuarial and structured professional judgement tools. An additional section was included for tools created for youths more broadly who are at risk and/or have engaged in criminal behavior. The chart below offers a quick summary of their compendium.
IMPLICATIONS FOR PROFESSIONALS
Sometimes lost in the discussions around understanding and assessing risk is how our existing tools can be helpful to well-informed practitioners. The field often refers to “risk” assessment, and focus on predicting PSB. For working with adolescents and children, however, these tools may be even more helpful in designing treatment plans and effective interventions. In recent years, professionals have often noted that often the “referral question” for assessments is less about establishing a baseline of risk and more about figuring out how to manage those risks and help clients find their strengths and supports to build abuse-free lives. One advantage that many of these tools offer is that practitioners can examine each item and reflect on how treatment can help improve it – this may be to reduce the risk or build up a strength. In particular, many of these tools look at the environment surrounding (and the caretakers for) these youth to ensure that they get the support they need to change their behaviors. These measures can also serve as checklists to make sure that practitioners have considered everything they need, including considerations for tailoring treatment to meet specific client responsivity needs.
IMPLICATIONS FOR THE FIELD
Recent years have seen enormous controversy with respect to understanding risk, placing risk assessment in its proper context, and ensuring that evaluation reports are as helpful as they can be. We hope that this overview will help clinicians move beyond risk assessment when working with youth to a broader view of the whole person AND their family/environment. This article may help the reader rise above the pandemonium to determine for themselves the most helpful way forward. Obviously, young people can be at risk for many kinds of outcomes, and some measures address these outcomes differently from others. As David often says, sometimes the highest risk that young people face is not living up to their full potential. The proper and best use of these measures is to help the client and their family build healthier lives.
CITATION
Jung, S., & Thomas, M. L. (2022). A compendium of risk and needs tools for assessing male youths at-risk to and/or who have engaged in sexually abusive behaviors. Sexual Offending: Theory, Research, and Prevention, 17, 1-28.
ABSTRACT
Using a standardized, validated risk assessment tool is an integral part of risk management and should be employed to evaluate a youth who is at risk to and/or has engaged in sexually abusive behaviors. Risk and needs tools are needed to inform critical decisions about the allocation of services and the areas that should be targeted in treatment and supervision. Although practitioners have a number of published tools to their avail, it is often less practical to discover the type of tool, where to access the tool, information regarding its psychometric properties, and how to access relevant training. This paper offers a brief compendium of youth-applied risk tools specific to male youths who are at risk to and/or who have engaged in sexually abusive behaviors; specifically, a description of the tool and its psychometric properties, along with where practitioners may access these tools and any relevant training in using these tools, are summarized. In light of the challenges that exist when assessing risk among youths, caveats and considerations are also explored.
Note: Some information may have changed since the publication of this original article.
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