KORTRIGHT PROGRAM

1. KORTRIGHT PROGRAM CRCSOM Therapeutic Foster Care Program

2. Development of Catskill Regional Coalition for Sexual Offender Management. (CRCSOM) Who are the members of the Catskill Regional Coalition for Sexual Offender Management? Chenango, Delaware , Otsego and Schoharie Counties An award of $250,000 was given to the CRCSOM in October 2006. By the U.S Department of Justice, Office of Justice Assistance, Bureau of Criminal Justice Assistance (BJA) Grant. The group initially focused on the juvenile population.

4. Goals of CRCSOM • Promote victim-center approaches and victim advocacy. • Pre-Sentence specialized sex offender evaluations. • Increase the use of polygraph evaluations and viewing time measures. • Enhance quality of treatment.

5. Provide professional training, clinical and technical consultation and community education. • Create one agency-operated therapeutic foster homes for juvenile sexual offenders in each of the four counties. 7. Plan for the continuation of CRCSOM and disseminate the information beyond the four counties. Goals of CRCSOM continued…

6. IMPLEMENTATION PHASE OF CRCSOM GOALS AND OBJECTIVES Enhance the Understanding of Juvenile Sexual Abusers (Professional Training) Enhance the Quality and Availability of Juvenile Sexual Abusers Assessment. Provide Treatment to youth who act out sexually. Assure all Interventions are consistent with the Best Interest of Victims. Ensure the Continuation/ Sustainability of the CRCSOM Project Objective 2: CRCSOM Core Group will create an agency- operated therapeutic foster home for juvenile sexual offenders. Plan : The CRCSOM team will prepare to replicated the Kortright Program with the remaining counties in the CRCSOM catchments area. The Core Group will prepare materials to share with governmental entities that would like to replicate the community-based form of foster care.

7. Kortright Program Agency Operated Foster Home Model Mission: To provide youth who exhibit sexually inappropriate behavior a safe, structure and supervised therapeutic home environment while maintaining them in a community based setting.

8. Kortright Program: This specialized program is referred to as the Kortright program. This program helps to provide an array of community based treatment services to male adolescents ranging from age from 12-18 years who have committed sexual offenses or demonstrated sexually aggressive behaviors. One of our hopes of the program is that we will help the youth placed in the program will learn how to “court right”! (Kortright Program).

9. Is this ProgramCost Effective? This program provides a variety of levels of services as alternatives to costly inpatient programs. This program is the only known community based Title IV-E Federally eligible model as compared to other residential treatment program. The cost is just under $60,000 per child with the County cost just under $15,000 compared to residential programs which cost over $130,000 per child with a minimum County cost of at least $60,000. _____ _______ __ _____ ____ ___ _________ __ _____ __ ___________ __________ __ _________ ___ ____ _________ _____ ______ ___ ______ ___ ___________

10. Cost effective… We calculate that there is an annual saving of about $1,000,000 from the reduction of cost of residential placements by utilizing these many resources thus making this model sustainable. Develop a similar foster care program in each of the four counties of the Catskill Region Coalition for Sexual Offender Management by 2009.

11. Kortright Agency Operated Foster Home • GOALS: • To provide youth with treatment closer to their home and family. This will allow families and surrogate families to be included as full participants in all aspects of the delivery of services. • To provide outpatient individual, group and family therapy for your placed in the Kortright Program. • To assist families with safety plans to promote healthy family functioning. • To help the child develop self-esteem and age appropriate independent functioning. • To help keep the community safe. • To provide a more cost effective model for youth treatment than residential programming.

12. Operation of the Home County owned home or DSS leases the home. DSS Certifies the Foster Parent(s) and two support staff and one recreational worker who reside or work in the home. All support staff are certified as foster parents in the event, the foster parent(s) take a vacation or break. The home is then covered by a support staff person who steps into the role of foster parent. DSS Contracts with a voluntary or community based agency to hire the foster parent, support staff and one recreational worker that work in the home.

13. Operation of the Home continued… Department responsible for all landlord activities and furnishings in the home. One Caseworker and Case B Supervisor assigned to work with the youth and foster parents in the Kortright Program. Responsible for the youth’s service plan, maintenance of the foster home. Attend monthly meetings with involved service providers from Agency Operated Foster Home program, Mental Health Clinic, Probation Department, DSS Administration and Forensic Consultant, Dr. Hamill. DSS Educational Consultant to work with the local school district regarding the youth’s educational plan. Independent living skills are provided by the foster parent(s) and support staff.

14. Other Contracts • Contract with County Mental Health Clinic, to provide two therapists to work with identified youth. One who attends house meetings on a weekly bases or less frequently if appropriate. These therapists also provide individual, family and group treatment for the assigned youth. • Contract with Dr. Richard Hamill, PH.D of Forensic Mental Health Associates. He consults with DSS and MHC Staff on each of the youth in the Kortright Program. Additionally, Dr. Hamill attends monthly meetings to consult on the assigned youth in the program. He is also available for phone consults as issues arise.

15. Type of youth who may be placed in the Kortright Program. All youth placed in the Kortright program must be placed in the local Commissioner’s care and custody. Only Male adolescents between the ages 12-18 who have exhibited inappropriate sexual behavior. Those youth must have been evaluated by either the specialized therapists at the County Mental Health Clinic or by the Forensic Mental Health Consultant and recommend for placement in the Kortright Program. Type of placements; Voluntary Placement Agreement, PINS or JD Court Ordered foster care placements.

16. DSS may offer a voluntary placement agreement which places the youth into foster care immediately. Immediate interventions are put into place. This can occur whether or not a PINS or JD Petition has been filed. Why a Voluntary Placement?

17. Foster Care placement provides… Assistance in helping the child to develop self-esteem and age appropriate independent functioning at home, in school and community. Progressively introduce the child to a less restrictive environment until a return home is possible.

18. Treatment Services A specialized treatment program is provided for adolescent male sex offenders ( adjudicated or not) at our local mental health clinic. To provide individual treatment and group treatment for those youth placed in the Kortright Program. Group treatment is also available for those youth who are living at home but could benefit from specialized mental health treatment concerning sexual behaviors.

19. Treatment services continued… Monthly consults with Dr. Hamill by treatment team members. Phone consults with MH therapists and or Dr. Hamill as needed. E-mail as needed Probation services

20. Use of Polygraphs The use of polygraphs is another tool that may be used in some cases. This technique may be used in the dispositional stage of a legal PINS or JD proceeding or as part of the youth’s mental health treatment. We have determined that a youth should be a least 15 years of age or older when considering the use of the polygraph. This tool may be appropriate at any time during the life of the case to help break through denial and to facilitate treatment.

21. Lessons Learned • Public Interest and concerns • Issues with school district, i.e.; funding, Special Education Classification and programming. • Kortright Program staffing • Respite services • Public Assistance • Employment • After care services

22. Review of youth • 11 youth have been evaluated for the program since it’s inception • Number of evaluations completed since inception by MHC (0) by Dr. Hamill ( 9 ), by another evaluator (1) and (1) youth was deemed by Dr. Hamill to be in need of immediate residential placement due to the severity of his sexual offenses. • Voluntary placements (4) • PINS (2) • JD (5) • 9 of these youth were placed in the Kortright Program. The other two youth remained at home and were only involved in the clinical treatment portion. (1 in individual treatment and 1 in group only) neither child ever entered foster care.