Our Therapy

Therapy at Amberleigh Residential Therapeutic School, which is an inherent component of our service, consists of individual, weekly, one-hour sessions with each of our young people, as well as one two-hour group therapy session per week.

At the beginning of the placement, an independent forensic psychiatric and psychological risk assessment is carried out. This supplements and informs the internal, ongoing assessments of the young people. The assessment period covers the first twelve weeks of the placement and leads to recommendations as to how the young person may move forward.

Individual therapy

The individual sessions are broadly person-centred in approach, giving the young person an opportunity to explore their harmful or inappropriate sexualised behaviour and the life experiences and attachment issues that have fuelled the engine of their offending. As implied in the section above on the assessment framework, therapy for each person is based on what is learnt during their assessment period. Also, issues frequently come up that the young person needs space and time to work through. This can lead to an understanding of the powerful factors that have often driven them to sexualise their pain and anger. Other issues that could arise are poor self-esteem, poor social skills, post-traumatic stress disorder and continuing resentments. The young person has the safety and opportunity here to work through these difficulties in a problem-solving way. They are also supported through the Group Therapy process in their individual sessions. For example, issues may come up in Group Therapy, week by week, that will need to be pursued in individual therapy.

Group therapy

We believe that adolescents who display harmful or inappropriate sexual behaviours differ significantly from adults who offend sexually in that they continue to develop after their offending. They are still children and they are full of potential for change. We also believe that this change has to involve the whole person. So, we work holistically, involving education, care and therapy. The young people here are encouraged to build on their individual strengths and to identify and work to correct their problem thoughts, attitudes and behaviours.

They work through a therapeutic programme – one that is specifically designed for adolescent boys. In the programme, they participate in activities, games and exercises that provide a safe and fun environment for positive change. The young people also consider the idea of risk factors (situations, thoughts, feelings and behaviours) that could contribute to future reoffending, before being encouraged to identify their own risk factors, and strategies for coping with these.

Throughout the duration of the young people’s stay here, the group provides them with a powerful opportunity to learn about the way their particular behaviour impacts on other group members and, indeed, on the community at large. Young people are encouraged to be honest and clear in offering feedback to each other. The programme includes modules on anger management and self-esteem. It also includes age-appropriate, developmentally appropriate sex and relationship education, together with input on communication skills and stress management. Throughout, it considers the meaning of values, moral considerations and respect for others.

After ten years working in this field, we know of no young people who, having completed the programme, have yet reoffended sexually.