OJP Collaborative Funding

Evidence-Based Practice for Sexual Behavior in Youth: Improving Community-Based Management for Youth, Victims, and Families

The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention and the Office of Sex Offender Sentencing, Monitoring, Apprehending, Registering, and Tracking collaborated to develop the Youth with Sexual Behavior Problems (YSBP) Program. This program targets late childhood and early adolescence for implementing evidence-based, comprehensive management and intervention strategies to address the sexual behavior problems (SBP) of youth as well as studying the effects of SBP on child victims and their families. Targeting this age group for management strategies to address SBP has a high potential for impact.

Efficacious early interventions have been developed and evaluated that target youth with SBP, child victims, and the families of both. These evidence-based practices (EBP) share a common theory base and emphasis on working with parents. However, across the country, these practices are not provided to most youth with SBP, the victims, or the families. Disseminating comprehensive, coordinated EPB for youth with SBP and the child victims in the community is complicated due to unique challenges. Services require coordination of different EBP for youth with SBP and their victims, both of which require active involvement of the caregiver. Furthermore, multiple agency, system, and policy barriers impact referral, access, and engagement in services.

Currently, YSBP programs in California, Nebraska, and New Jersey are working to (a) establish community-based management of youth with SBP, their victims, and the families; and (b) improve the community’s coordination of services through multidisciplinary teams. The programs are YSBP Community Mental Health (Children’s Institute, Inc., in Los Angeles); WISE Families Program (Children's Aid and Family Services, Regional Diagnostic Treatment Center of Newark, and Wynona's House Child Advocacy Center of Newark, New Jersey); and the RSafe® 10-14 Project (Lutheran Family Services and Project Harmony, in Omaha, Nebraska).

For more information, please contact Jane F. Silovsky, [email protected], at the Center on Child Abuse and Neglect, University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center.

Contents
  • Evidence-Based Practice for Sexual Behavior in Youth: Improving Community-Based Management for Youth, Victims, and Families
    The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention and the Office of Sex Offender Sentencing, Monitoring, Apprehending, Registering and Tracking collaborated to develop the Youth with Sexual Behavior Problems (YSBP) Program.  . . . arrow More
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