There are two choices by which US juvenile offenders can be admitted: at correctional facilities that offer no specialized therapeutic programs and where troubled boys are locked up, or in any one of the 1,000 treatment programs nationwide such as Counterpoint center for juvenile sex offenders located in Portland, Oregon. Funding is scarce for such specialized treatment programs that can only accommodate quite a few.

Counterpoint center for juvenile sex offenders is said to be an intensive therapy program that offers the chance to change. A follow up research may validate the claim. Therapy patients at Counterpoint generally show a relapse rate of only 4 percent, similar to the national average. The environment at Counterpoint may have been contributory to the center’s relative success. The boys are not locked up but only placed on 24/7 sight and sound supervision, with audio monitors in their rooms. Within the average 18 month-stay, the boys attend an on-site academic program where arts is used as psychological therapy, among others.

Therapy sessions are also conducted daily on each and every one of the boys. All counselors, teachers, and residential staff work on-site where they converse with the patients even over lunch, about sports and games among others. This home atmosphere contributes greatly in helping the boys combat isolation. The result has been positive because the boys learn how to handle anger through the abilities of compromise and discussion. At Counterpoint, the boys are treated as normal teenagers.

Counterpoint uses a cognitive therapy model. The boys are made to review their behavior in terms of responsibility and accountability. They first have to recognize that they are completely responsible for the bad things they have done. Also, that they have to erase all the justification they have been making in behalf of their abusive behavior. The boys are made to confront their issues.

The center employs several therapeutic techniques such as identifying with the boys what trigger their behavior, thereby establishing a link between emotion and behavior. The principle of accountability is foremost at Counterpoint. This is to make the boys become responsible adults later on. Anger management, behavioral analysis, and emotional intelligence are other therapeutic techniques used at the center.

Counterpoint aims for a completely successful individual treatment. It understands the behavior of boys, as boys. The center believes that these boys are still experimenting at their role in society. If they made the wrong turn early in life, the center sees this as precisely that – an early stage in life. For one thing, Counterpoint has noted that these boys do not even refer to themselves as sex offenders. The center recognizes the fact that the boys’ erring behavior is a result of victimization of neglect and abuse. The staff believes that these boys can be different when they get to adulthood. Thus, Counterpoint looks at the potential of these young men and their future.

The boys learn some crucial facts by the time they are evaluated as fit to leave the center: that they are accountable for whatever they do, and that they will end up in jail when they backslide to offending. In effect, Counterpoint has influenced the boys with the mindset to always think about what keeps them safe.

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Via Connect for Kids