Corrections Community

Our facility is small, 20 beds, and provides the secure care custody (operated under Dept. of Corrections/Youth Services Division) for adjudicated adolescent female offenders for the State of Montana. We are the only facility of this kind for the state. Average length of stay is 8 months.All are adjudicated on either Misdemeanor or Felony offenses. Offenses are rarely at the level of Felony against Person of any type. We are in the process of reviewing our programing and updating it. I am interested in the T4C program, but have some questions/concerns. I have been researching thoughts regarding cognitive behavioral therapy, and am currently reading "Cognitive Behavioral INterventions for At-Risk Youth" by Dr. Glick. However, I am also very invested in trying to make sure any programing we do is gender responsive, and focuses on the risk/needs research is showing important when doing gender responsive programing. Some of the risk/needs are obviously the same for at risk/boys and girls, some are the same however with different degress of impact, and then there are some differences. In reading info on T4C, I don't see any discussion regarding this subject.

My first question is does T4C work equally well for boy and girls? Are there cognitive behaviorl therapy programs out there that have been developed specifically for adolecent females?

My second question is regarding the recommended "closed" format of the programming. Because we are so small, and have only one casemanger, and have girls coming and going monthly, thus far all our programing is "open". WE currently do a variety of groups, some facilitated by the casemanger, some by the CD counselor, and some by direct care staff. Right now, our schedule only allows for one group a day, and that group is part of the daily schedule for all girls (except the CD group, if a girl does not assess as needing CD TX, she does not attend that group, this is only ever 1 or 2 out of the population).

What are others' experiences with providing "closed" groups in a very small facility with fairly short lengths of stay, while ensuring that all the population has a chance to get the programming while at the facility?

I currently facilitate T4C and I'm also a Trainer for T4C at an adult male Community Based Correctional Facility in Ohio.  To help answer one of your questions.  I do know that T4C cannot be run as an open ended group because all of the skills learned in T4C build on eachother so if a client misses a lesson it would be very difficult for them to do the next lesson.  I have facilitated T4C at a 21 bed adult female facility with an average stay of 121 days.  We were able to provide T4C as a Closed group.  To get the all 21 lessons completed in the shortest amount of time you would have to have group 3 days a week for 7 weeks.  For integrity of the program it is recommended that group is only held twice a week for 11 weeks.  We were able to have all of the clients complete T4C before their release in 121 days with only one group running at a time.  It sounds like this could be possible with the clients being in residency for 8 months. 

In my experience the female population tends to enjoys T4C because they get to talk about their feelings a lot which the males struggle with, however, the program is equally effective with both populations.  I know several agencies have changed some of the role plays in the program to be taylored to the adolescents more than the ones that are in the manual. 

I hope this information has been helpful.

I am currently reviewing the research on CB and have found one study with an all female group.  In my opinion, CB does not violate any of the tenents of female responsive programming.   I think the issue is the facilitator's skill level in CB and facilitation in general as well as a facilitator's knowledge of female responsive programming and willingness to adhere to those principles.

There are many CB programs out there, so if you need to accommodate to females coming and going, then you might consider offering shorter C-B programs.  T4C incorporates three c-b interventions, cognitive restructuring (called cognitive self-change), social skills and problem solving.  Each of these interventions can be delivered as separate interventions, and delivered that way each can be for a shorter duration.  You may want to consider that the research on c-b interventions is clear that 'dosage' is an issue.  The less intensive, less amount of time given, the less change one can expect.

Rather than using a shorter program you could use Jack Bush's Cognitive Self Change (CSC).  Jack was one of the authors of the T4C.  We used  T4C when I was in Corrective Services, but swapped to CSC as it is open ended and much more able to deal with a range of diversity in the offenders.  We were running the program in the community and the poor attendance rates resulted in most offenders not being able to complete the program, even if they reappeared several weeks later.  On the other hand, with CSC we could breach them and allow them back into the program (Breach didn't usually result in a custodial sentence).

I work for probation and am wondering if doing Thinking 4 change would work one time a week for 22 weeks?

can you tell me where I can find the CBC material by Jack Bush

Please email me @  Charles_Robinson@ao.uscourts.gov

This message is for Carol Greene in reference to your question about obtaining the CSC material. 

Can you tell me where I can purchase or get copies of the CSC material?

I know that some folks in probation settings meet only once a week.  Depending on the size of your group and how long you meet, you may need to go longer than 22 weeks since some lessons take longer than a week if everyone is going to have a chance to do the exercises. 

You can contact Jack Bush at "Jack Bush" <mcbush@madriver.com>,

Cindy,

I understand your concern about female responsive programming.  I haved just completed some research on needs and interventions for females.  In my opinion, T4C is appropriate for females because it address the basic cognitive-behavioral needs common to all at-risk individuals associated with the criminal justice system.  What is very important is how the program is delivered.  All three components of the program allow the females to bring the issues they face and deal with them in terms of their thinking, emotions and actions. With females the challenge can be to keep the groups focused in a positive and productive way.  Dealing with the closed format is a little more challenging.  All three components are important for foundational work in cognitive behavioral interventions.

Hello. I coordinate cognitive skills programming for a large MN county; adult, community-based. I am a T4C facilitator and trainer, and also own a EBP programming/consulting company.

I run some groups 2x/week and some 1x/week. The 1x/week is tricky, but it can be done. The attrition rate is slightly higher than for 2x/week groups. It sort of depends on your referral and what sort of accountability you can provide for attendance. Our county has the cog eval court ordered, so if there are attendance issues, we have serious consequences to impose (A&D, violation, etc) . This seems to help attendance and completion rates.

The key to success seems to be otherwise mostly in careful referral selection. Can this person make it 5+ months successfully on probation without being taken out of group for some other reason? (Or do they generally relapse quicker than that and get pulled for CD tx, other violations, new charges, etc.) Do they have pending charges in yours or another jurisdiction that are going to come through and disrupt completion? I generally target those who seem to have some stability, as well as those who have lots of committments (children, regular AA attendance, employed, etc.)

That is what I have learned so far. Last year my completion rate was 72%, which we were generally pleased with.

Those are all great methods for reducing the drop-out rate. However, a side-effect is that you screen out the highest risk participants - i.e., those who need the program the most. Accountability is important, but you need to be running lots of groups so they can't appear in court, agree to go back in, and then ride out the rest of the order because no group commences in time for them to be able to finish during their order.

Richard, I see your concern, however, I did include in my post that I run BOTH 2x/week and 1x/week groups. Highest risk participants would never be "screened out," they would simply be put in the 2x/week groups. If CD issues were in play, case managing POs would generally direct the offender to CD treatment first, then when that is finished, send them to T4C. 

While we run many groups, I would add that my interpretation of the research in this area is that it is more important to focus on QUALITY of programming, than how many groups an agency can run, and that as the number increases, so does the liklihood the quality may decrease. I do not encounter this problem you mention about going back to court and riding out their order. There could be any number of differences in the way our jurisdictions operate to explain that.

I would add that each agency is doing its best to apply its resources and manage its cases the best it can while adjusting to this enormous learning curve that is evidence based practices. While we know what is "optimal" (i.e. many high-quality groups run 2x/week) from the research, the forum is a place to get advice about what can be done to move toward EBP. If an agency only has resources to run one group, 1x/week, they should consider how best to target appropriate referrals that can be successful in that format. Whatever is quality of programming and program completion need to be serious considerations. That in itself is an enormous challege for our resources-stretched-see-through-thin, and most often not-everyone-on-the-same page, probation departments. Good luck to you, Ms. Greene.