Evaluating intrafamilial child sexual abuse treatment: Group process and outcomes in multisite programs

Substantiated reports of child sexual abuse have been increasing since the early 1980's. The scarcity of research on family treatment of intrafamilial child sexual abusers has hindered the child welfare field in constructing empirically-based rehabilitative programs for families. This thesis describes the characteristics of intrafamilial offenders in one multi-site program, and evaluates the group services designed to treat their problems.; The Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children has developed treatment programs for intrafamilial offenders that were modeled after a successful program in California: Parents United (Giarretto, 1982). Offenders are counseled in groups with other offenders, and are expected to participate in the Parents United organization. Mental health treatment, self-help and other educational interventions are used.; The research design and methods that were employed are exploratory and descriptive in an effort to discover the therapeutic processes which could be linked to successful group progress. Combining participant observation with surveys proved to be especially useful for discovering how particular group processes and group leader helping skills were linked to successful group services. Five groups, with a total of 44 intrafamilial offenders, were studied during the first quarter of 1988. Demographic background characteristics, group processes, helping skills, and progress characteristics were examined and linked in this study.; The study found that programs with higher levels of exposure to helping interventions, more opportunities for continued professionally-guided peer support groups, more opportunities to learn prosocial skills, and more sustained attention to the offense pattern and relapse prevention seemed to present the most effective opportunity for successful control of further abuse. Furthermore, of the helping skills studied, group leaders are rated more successful at partializing client concerns, supporting clients in taboo areas, and dealing with authority themes. Group leaders tend to have lower frequencies of clarifying their relationship, verbalizing client feelings, and checking for the meaning of silences. Finally, for offenders, lower levels of denial, greater willingness to accept responsibility, a minimal history of previous sex offenses, and a desire to help the victim and mother deal with the abuse and its consequences were positive indicators for successful treatment.