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INTRODUCTION Each Community Education Centers' program is designed to meet the needs of the referring agency and the needs of the individuals referred. Some programs are focused on Assessment, some on Treatment and Education, some on Life-Skills, some on Employment and Community Reintegration. Each program will combine different treatment components to meet the needs of the specific population that has been referred. The two elements that all the programs have in common however, are rehabilitation and safe environment. No matter what the special focus of the facility, each program provides each participant, whether adolescent or adult, with rehabilitative case management specific to that individual’s needs, in a safe, secure environment. What follows may be
seen as the 'menu' of services that Community Education Centers provides.
TREATMENT OVERVIEW
The design and impact of various treatment methodologies have been the subjects of intense study over the last few years. Research into this area of 'what works' has led to the development of the Responsivity Principle: particular characteristics affect how each individual will respond to treatment. To be effective, treatment must take these variations into consideration. Community Education Center's programs are based on guidelines for effective programs:
Participants attend individual counseling, groups, experiential workshops and lectures as part of the treatment curriculum. Throughout treatment participants are monitored for behavioral problems and are subject to frequent random testing for alcohol and drug use. Participant progress is managed and monitored by a team of licensed professionals, including educators, certified alcohol and drug counselors, vocational specialists and medical professionals. Regular meetings are held to review cases and monitor behaviors in all facets of the program. Progress
in the program is based upon performance and behavior. The development
and maintenance of these favorable attitudes, associations, and
skills linked with enhanced rewards and reduced costs to the individual.
Concrete alternatives to anti-social styles of thinking, feeling
and acting are introduced and reinforced. ASSESSMENT The goals of providing comprehensive Assessments are to:
All participants complete
a battery of assessments that provide insight into the participant’s
rehabilitation needs. Areas assessed include academic, vocational and
employability factors, as well as substance abuse and risk of recidivism.
The particular assessment instruments used may vary according to the
presenting problems and the age of participant, but typically include
the following: COMPAS - Correctional Offender Management Profiles for Alternative Sanctions - risk scales assessed include violence, recidivism, 'failure to appear' and community non-compliance. SASSI- The Substance Abuse Subtle Screening Inventory - a screening tool that helps identify individuals with symptoms of substance abuse. Sub-scales measure legal and discipline areas. LSI-R - Level of Service Inventory - assesses risk of recidivism and provides information relevant to level-of-service decisions. PAI - Personality Assessment Inventory – objectively assesses personality and psychopathology. Aids in security, management, and treatment decisions. JI – Jesness Inventory (adolescent) – identifies and measures traits and attitudes (such as social maladjustment, value orientation, immaturity, depression, etc.) and assists in successful treatment focus, planning and methodology. WPT - Wonderlic Personnel Test – a cognitive ability test that measures an individual's ability to learn, understand instructions and solve problems. Aids in planning treatment as well as future employment. Genogram - a schematic representation of dynamic and static forces present and affecting familial and other close relationships. The genogram demonstrates generational components of substance abuse and criminal behavior. TABE - Testing for Adult Basic Education - provides a functional educational level and indicates areas requiring remediation in order to pass the GED. WBST - Wonderlic Basic Skills Test – assesses job-related verbal and quantitative skills for employment and vocational training programs. PCL-R – Psychopathy Check List – Revised – a rating scale for the assessment of psychopathy in male forensic populations. SDS – Self-Directed Search – a self-administered career counseling tool. Assessments are ongoing and also incorporate the daily behavior of each participant's involvement in the treatment program. The information gathered from the instruments and behavioral documentation is then utilized in the development of a "Continuum of Care Plan." This plan becomes the blueprint for the participant's course of treatment. Staff members are responsible
for giving the participant clear, simple suggestions as to the observable
changes that must be made in order to make progress in the program.
The participant develops a clear understanding of how the program works
and how he or she can best achieve success in obtaining desired outcomes. GROUP THERAPY Groups provide a forum for participants to share their thoughts, feelings, and experiences with other participants. Often participants learn about themselves through this exchange of information, the feedback given to them by their peers about their behavior, and identification with others in the group. A variety of group types are conducted and are used in areas such as substance abuse treatment, life-skills, changing criminal thinking, family programs, etc. Conflict Resolution - structured, cognitive-behavioral sessions that allow participants to express feelings while confronting others' behaviors, encourage discussion of the nature of the behaviors, and offer resolution of personal conflicts. Process groups - participants process their daily thoughts and feelings. Participants may feel free to talk about past traumatic experiences and examine irrational thinking patterns they have developed as a result of these experiences. Caseload groups - provide the Senior Counselor with the opportunity to address common goal achievement within his/her caseload of participants. Characteristic
groups - brings individuals together to deal with issues related
to a shared characteristic, i.e. ethnicity, culture, job, etc. LIFE SKILLS The Vital Issues Project, developed by The Life Skills Foundation is an audio-visual curriculum "equips a person to better govern his/herself as related to attitudes, habits, conditioning processes, motivation, emotional control, stress management, problem solving, decision making, financial stability, family-life cohesiveness, inter-personal communications . . ." The Vital Issues Project
enables participants to reconstruct a way of life based on happiness
and success as opposed to despair and failure. Participants begin to
realize that conditions and circumstances will improve only when they
develop or strengthen their own abilities. The curriculum utilizes dual
sensory perception, spaced repetition, and group interaction. A facilitator
guides a group of 15-20 participants through a 40- to 80-hour curriculum. CHANGING CRIMINAL THINKING Treatment in this course
is founded on Choices, a curriculum based on cognitive learning
theory that accents the pitfalls of participants' past behaviors and
ways of thinking, while offering concrete suggestions for change and
methods by which change can be achieved. Information is delivered in
didactic sessions and reinforced in small groups. SUBSTANCE-ABUSE TREATMENT Didactic sessions provide
information about addiction that is essential to the recovering person.
Small groups allow participants to confront each others' pasts and their
commitment to change. Twelve-Step and Rational-Emotive-type therapy
groups typically hold regularly scheduled meetings in facilities. Participants
begin to realize the connection between old attitudes and behaviors
and the resulting problematic lifestyle. New problem solving skills
are modeled by the staff and reinforced in group sessions. FAMILY PROGRAM Substance abuse and a wide variety of problematic behaviors, such as criminal activities, have been shown to be inter-generational in nature. Therefore, as a preventive measure and as a key to reducing recidivism and a return to such behaviors, it is vital to provide education and treatment to the families of program participants. The goal of the Family Program is for participants and their families to be successfully reunited. This reduces the participant's chance of relapse and return to problem behavior. The Family Program
is structured to anticipate and resolve problems that may confront the
participants and their families, and to facilitate dialogue and solutions.
The Family Program provides families with the knowledge and tools they
will need for a successful reunion. The groups are voluntary for adults,
but may be mandatory for adolescent programs. Participants construct
genograms and family maps and attend lectures and workshops on topics
such as family structure, and the affect of addiction on the family. WILDERNESS PROGRAM ADOLESCENTS ONLY The Wilderness or Back-Country
program is a high-impact, experiential program. It is composed of four
phases: Orientation,
which provides preliminary assessments and rules, regulations and safety
information in preparation for the next phase; Back-Country,
which immerses adolescents in
a challenging wilderness environment where they must learn new skills,
depend on others, and learn and practice new attitudes in order to complete
the course; Residential,
which focuses on processing what was learned and preparing the adolescent
for re-entry into the community; and finally Aftercare,
where the student returns to home and school with the support services
of school counselor, therapist, case manager and other ancillary services. EDUCATION Education is of key importance in CEC programs and is provided both to adults and to adolescents. The adult education program, designed by Invest Learning, was created specifically for the mature learner. This remedial program assesses current grade level and then takes the participant from their current aptitude through GED level. It provides an individualized aptitude and interest inventory, which is comprised of seven tests, and assists participants in assessing possible career directions. Education for adolescents
is State-certified and accredited and each CEC adolescent program provides
a curriculum that is transferable to the home school. The education
component of each program is tied directly to treatment. While participating
in standard classes, adolescents are taught appropriate behavior and
are taught a variety of learning styles to assist them upon re-integration
into their respective schools. DAY REPORTING Day Reporting allows
participants who have been assessed as low-risk to maintain employment
while ensuring their adherence to court mandates. Day Reporting offers
job-skill development and resource-center assistance, and requires each
participant to secure meaningful employment. Other Day Reporting services
include random alcohol and drug testing, home visits, employment verifications
and visits, curfew checks and assistance with court appearances. The
program promotes individual responsibility, assists the individual in
developing a support system, and maintains individual accountability
in the community. ELECTRONIC PAGING The Electronic Paging Program, or EPP, is an accurate, cost-effective method for tracking the locations of participants who are allowed outside the facility, such as those who are allowed on Work Release or on furloughs. When participants have outside itineraries approved, they are issued pagers and explicit instructions regarding their responses to being paged. The participants are paged by staff members at random times throughout the day, based on the participant’s approved itinerary. The participants' return calls must pass through a specialized encrypted caller identification unit and a digital logger/voice recorder, which allows staff to positively identify the participant as well as the location they are calling from. The pagers are number-protected to guard against abuses. Outgoing and incoming
calls are automatically logged, recorded and time-stamped, and a positive
identification of the participant's location is printed. If a participant
is calling from outside the parameters of his itinerary it is so noted
in the computer, and a hard-copy report is printed and the referring
agency is notified of the infraction. Hard copies of daily, monthly
and annual reports of all activities are provided. GLOBAL POSITIONING SYSTEM GPS is a sophisticated tracking system that operates via a network of low-orbit satellites. These satellites, using radio signals, in concert with cellular telephone and an ankle bracelet, can pinpoint the targeted individual's position within 100 feet. The participant must wear an ankle bracelet (which is not removable once affixed) and must carry a 4-pound box, about the size of a small radio. A GPS receiver is located in the box and uses the cell phone to call location information into the monitoring station, at which the location of the box is shown on a map. This cell phone/satellite technology does not require a telephone line (as with former ankle-bracelets) and the participant is therefore free to find and maintain gainful employment. Any location that the participant has been ordered to stay away from may be programmed into the system. The computerized map warns the monitoring station if the participant gets too close to a banned area, or if the participant moves from an area in which he/she should remain. If the box and ankle bracelet are more than 600 feet apart, the cell phone in the box alerts the monitoring station. GPS places responsibility
for appropriate behavior with the participant, but provides 24-hour
monitoring to ensure compliance. WORK RELEASE All participants must complete a job skills readiness program before they can enter work release. Topics include resume writing, reading want ads, developing budgets, arranging transportation, job behavior and etiquette, and time management. Participants in Work Release must be models, in terms of their behavior and attitude, for the rest of the community. There should be a visible difference between their demeanor and that of participants in earlier stages of the program. All participants in
Work Release are required to attend three group sessions per week as
part of their ongoing treatment. These groups are aimed at issues that
arise on the job as well as other transitional issues that result from
the anxiety generated by the participants' imminent return to their
communities. AFTERCARE As part the conditions of parole, a participant is expected to attend two aftercare sessions per week. Aftercare is conducted at all facilities. If the participant is unable to attend these sessions, referrals can be made to appropriate agencies. Participants are also encouraged to join Alumni Groups and to maintain contact with 12-step and self-help groups. Adolescent Aftercare is very structured and provides Case Management Services for a minimum of thirty days after the adolescent returns to home and school. Top |