Sex Offender Treatment

The field of treating adolescents with sexual behavior problems began to grow in the 1980’s and experienced its most rapid growth in the 1990’s. There are several emerging issues related to the assessment and treatment of adolescent sex offenders.

At Youth Progress, our goal is to treat the whole person. Each individual is assessed for sexual offending behaviors and personal issues that have not been addressed in prior treatment. Because public safety is a concern to us, treatment is directed for rehabilitative reasons. We know from statistics that 94.7% of the adolescents completing treatment in Oregon do not re-offend sexually.

Youth Progress Association's Philosophy

Unlike adults, adolescents are still advancing in many areas. Developmentally they are still growing physically, cognitively, and emotionally. The offending adolescent needs to be held accountable for his behaviors. Our philosophy is to confront behaviors not in a punitive manner but to redeem the mistakes. Even healthy adolescents are fine-tuning their sense of understanding about what it means to be responsible and who they are as individuals.

Youth Progress strives continually to be on the cutting edge of adolescent sex offender treatment. To achieve this our emphasis is on developmental needs, social skills, emotional development, resiliency, and personal trauma. We have developed a process through which the adolescent develops his personal, positive Plan for Success and Safety. The Plan for Success and Safety is similar to a relapse prevention plan, but looks at how the client can broaden his or her positive behaviors and social experiences. Through the process, the adolescent creates a mission statement for his or her new life. By answering questions about what they have learned about themselves and their families, clients work through to a finality of treatment. The purpose of the Plan for Success and Safety is to keep the adolescent’s eyes on positive situation, activities, and individuals. In the past, Relapse Prevention was focused on risky situations. The adolescents looking for risky situations found themselves in risky situations. Our hope is to facilitate a healthy lifestyle in a positive way.