New Tool for Assessment & Treatment of Juvenile Sex Offenders

Newswise — Two San Diego, CA researchers have developed a new assessment tool designed to help clinicians evaluate and treat youth under the age of 19 who are, or at risk of becoming, sexually abusive. The model is a breakthrough in an area where research has lagged, even as the problem of sexual offenses by juveniles has increased. The model, first introduced earlier this year in Israel, will be presented for the first time to researchers, practitioners and health care professionals in the US at a Family Violence & Sexual Assault Institute conference in September.

In the latest data available from the US Department of Justice (DOJ), National Center for Juvenile Justice, juveniles ages 7-17 comprised 23.2 % of all sexual assaults reported to law enforcement. Children ages 7 to 11 were responsible for 3.6% of the offenses. Because sexual abuse is a seriously underreported crime, estimates of actual offenses committed by youth are as high as 40%. The DOJ age profile of offenders indicates that the greatest number of juvenile sex offenses are committed at age 14.

Clinician researchers L.C. Miccio-Fonseca, PhD and Lucinda A Rasmussen, PhD believe that the model they developed in their work together over the past year, called MEGA, represents a new paradigm that overcomes the limitations of current methodologies widely used to evaluate sexual abuse by children. The model evolved from previous work the authors completed independently over the past seven years – Miccio-Fonseca on designing tools for assessing sexual abusers and Rasmussen on developing a model to explain sexually abusive behavior in youth.

“Traditionally, child sex abusers, or children who exhibit questionable sexual behavior, have been assessed with the same tools that are used with adults,” says Dr. Rasmussen, an Associate Professor at San Diego State University School of Social Work and a licensed clinical social worker who specializes in sexually abusive youth and family violence. “This model makes it possible to take a much more nuanced look at the sexual behavior of boys and girls under the age of 19, and take into account factors that are specifically applicable to children”

MEGA, the Multiplex Empirically Guided Inventory of Ecological Aggregates for Assessing Sexually Abusive Children and Adolescents (Ages 19 and Under) is a structured interview format that clinicians can use to conduct a systematic assessment of youth who have been referred to treatment because of sexually abusive behavior and/or sexual behavior problems. It applies to young children as well as adolescents, and all levels of developmental function. MEGA is more comprehensive than previous risk assessment tools, say Miccio-Fonseca and Rasmussen, because it includes areas of youth functioning that have been overlooked or minimized in previous risk assessment instruments.

“There are aspects of a youth’s functioning that may impact both their level of sexual aggression and their response to treatment,” notes Dr. Miccio-Fonseca, a clinical researcher and forensic psychologist who directs the Clinic for the Sexualities in San Diego. “MEGA includes aggregates such as neuropsychological function, antisocial behavior, extreme coercion and predatory behavior. It also provides a time-sensitive assessment that is specific to the youth being evaluated, and can be updated over time as the youth matures and goes through development stages.”

Rasmussen and Miccio-Fonseca will present their findings at international conference sponsored by the Family Violence and Sexual Assault Institute (FVSAI), September 18-21 in San Diego, California. The four-day conference will feature a range of workshops for practitioners as well as victims and their families on such topics as recent research on domestic violence and its effect on children who are exposed to it, tools and approaches for assessment and treatment of abuse victims, “best practices” for diagnosing and treating co-occurring problems, legal issues relating to domestic violence and abuse, and cultural dynamics of violence and its treatment. There are also tracks and sessions for dealing with elder abuse, child abuse, sexual assault, youth violence, trauma and the overlapping issues important to the prevention of these epidemics.