Heartland Behavioral Health Services

Residential Treatment Services

Sexually Abusive Youth Program

The Sexual Abusive Youth (SAY) Program is for males 12 to 18 years of age. The program uses the Personal Maintenance Program Contract (PMPC) which serves as a road map to living an offense-free lifestyle. In this program, the adolescent's trigger points or all the circumstances or events that would cause him to re-offend are listed and addressed. This list is then given to the doctor, parents' social worker, therapist, the child himself and anyone who is involved with the child. This creates awareness of any situations that should be avoided with regard to the child.

The contract makes the adolescent aware of what they are doing and offers ways to cope with those situations. The PMPC also includes the following:

  • Chapters on their offenses
  • Deviant cycle with interventions
  • How their cycle affects their life
  • Special environmental restrictions
  • Positive enhancing activities
  • Moral development
  • Healthy sexuality
  • Any other issues that the child believes is important to provide to others in their support network

Upon admission the adolescent receives a comprehensive psychosexual evaluation with emphasis on risk factors. Once these are identified and have been prioritized, the master treatment plan is developed. The issues discovered during this phase are then outlined and addressed as various points throughout the treatment program. The therapeutic assignments designed for each level are modified to address each child's individual risk factors. This includes the use of the Abel Assignment.

Principles of the program:

  • The child will develop ownership in their actions beginning with their offending behaviors
  • The adolescent will learn to prevent a relapse
  • The individual will develop a healthy direction in life

Goals of the program:

  • Increase community safety through the use of treatment to significantly reduce the likelihood of reoffending
  • Improve the juvenile's psychosocial and interpersonal functioning

Methodology of the program:

  • Cognitive-Behavioral
  • Psychoeducation
  • Group Therapy
  • Individual Therapy
  • Family Therapy
  • Physiological Assessment

Outcomes of the program:

  • Fully disclose all sexual behaviors
  • Demonstrate understanding of their cycles of behavior
  • Understand their sequences of thoughts, feelings and behaviors
  • Take ownership of their behavior
  • Understand their thinking errors that lead to inappropriate decisions
  • Develop skills to manage and help reduce arousal to deviant sexual fantasies
  • Decrease levels of risk and develop plans to manage it
  • Identify their own healthy sense of sexuality
  • Identify their own developing moral system
  • Increase empathy skills
  • Improve their own management of other psychiatric symptoms
  • Develop and complete their own Personal Maintenance Program Contract

Length of stay:

  • The average length of stay for this program is 12 to 18 months.
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