Congratulations Jonathan Tolcher on your published article!
Congratulations to Jonathan Tolcher, Senior Clinician at Safe Network, who has recently had an article published in the Journal of Forensic Practice.
The title of the article is “Enough is enough: treatment dropout predictors of adolescents with harmful sexual behaviours in a New Zealand community sample”.
Article overview
Adolescents with harmful sexual behaviours (AHSB) who drop out of treatment are more likely to continue offending than those who complete treatment; therefore, it is important to identify factors that heighten the risk of dropout, so they can be detected early. The purpose of this paper is to present the predictors of treatment dropout derived from a community sample of AHSB in New Zealand.
Pretreatment data on 100 males (aged 12-18) in community-based treatment for harmful sexual behaviour were analysed. Data on 50 adolescents who dropped out were matched by age and ethnicity to 50 adolescents who completed treatment.
Pretreatment variables were identified using the Estimate of Risk of Adolescent Sexual Offence Recidivism. The degree to which these variables influenced treatment dropout was tested using logistic regression.
Findings
Compared to those who completed treatment, adolescents who dropped out were more likely to have a prior history of personal victimisation, to deny or minimise their behaviour, to have been mandated to attend treatment and to have engaged in non-contact offences.
Screening for a prior history of personal victimisation, denial or minimisation, mandated treatment and non-contact offences may facilitate the prediction of dropout risk more confidently. Addressing these pretreatment risk variables has the potential to improve treatment completion rates.
The full article is available here: