Group Therapy, Behaviors among Adolescents - Essay Example

Among the most common diversion programs that are correlated with recidivism are case management, individual treatment, family treatment, youth court, and restorative justice. Of these five programs, only family treatment and restorative justice have a statistically significant impact on the reduction rate of recidivism (Schwalbe et al., 2012). Thus, one of the most concrete places where the group for this treatment could substantially be held is at home, where parents and other relevant members of the family come close in contact with the patient.

Goal of group

The goal of the group, therefore, is to generate empirical evidence associated with the delinquent behaviors of adolescents and probable recidivism through their parents or other close family members. Under this program, the group substantially applies cognitive-behavioral theoretical models to generate information, especially in cases of post-release rehabilitation programs that are effectively conducted at home (Underwood & Knight, 2006).

Treatment
Youth offenders could be treated in a form of family counseling conducted by mental health personnel in either private or public type (Yazzie, 2011). Of these two types, a private form of counseling initiated at home was said to come up with remarkably good results in reducing some delinquent behaviors among youth offenders (Yazzie, 2011). At this point, the group of mental health personnel who would want to gather relevant empirical evidence should necessarily come in contact with both the patient and his or her relatives at home. In this way, treatment would be ongoing, but on the other hand, remarkable data should be obtained, all to determine the ultimate impact of juvenile diversion programs on the rate of recidivism.

The group therefore should consider combining both quantitative and qualitative information to generate remarkable results. The point is exactly to initiate a post-release rehabilitation program to ensure treatment. On the other hand, this is just one of the primary concerns because another ultimate move would be to gather relevant data to analyze or evaluate the effectiveness of juvenile diversion programs.

The group therefore should initiate two combined remarkable outputs, treatment and monitoring or evaluation of the case. That is why both treatment and its empirical evidence should come together to evaluate the effectiveness of employed juvenile diversion programs which in this case was shown to be more effective with family counseling employing cognitive-behavioral theoretical models. After all, mental health counseling is noted to be initiated for at least half of the youth involved in delinquent behaviors (Douglas, Dembo & Henderson, 2007).

Group format
Mental health personnel involved in juvenile diversion programs, particularly in family counseling should necessarily meet regularly. The leader requires monitoring data for evaluation and obtaining relevant empirical evidence regarding the efficiency or effectiveness of the juvenile diversion program. Read More