Criminal and Addictive Thinking definition
Criminal and Addictive Thinking. “Gangs: The Choice is Yours” “My Change Plan” Prior to January 20 2009, the SMU program was run by a single social worker, who was responsible for documentation, groups, orientation, and team review. Presently, there are two FTE social workers and one FTE doctoral level Psychologist assigned to the unit. When I arrived on the SMU on February 11, 2009, a social worker was conducting a group session with youth in her office. There is no dedicated group room on the SMU; staff must remove items from their desks and offices so youth will not have access to contraband during group, individual, and family therapy sessions. The newer social worker conducts orientation sessions and assigns each youth to a “red phase” of the Special Management Plan. Weekly individual treatment team meetings are attended by the youth, social worker, psychologist, and JCOs. When a youth has met his goals, he is advanced to the “yellow phase” of the program and begins to work with the more experienced SMU social worker. The youth will advance from “yellow phase” to “blue phase” after he meets the requirements for advancement. There is no orientation manual for the SMU. The orientation process is verbal. There was no documentation in the psychology chart, or elsewhere, regarding the SMU orientation, treatment team meetings, individual sessions, or group sessions conducted by social workers. This may, in part, be due to roles and expectations for social workers that are being redefined at the DYS Central Office level. That is, social workers are not permitted to write in psychology charts. On the other hand, SMU social work staff may be overwhelmed by the volume of work they do; they have not had time to document their interactions with youth in any systematic fashion. Although the role of the SMU Psychologist has not been clearly defined, he has begun to document anger management group sessions for each youth in his respective psychology chart. The social worker that sat in on the first anger management group said the group is “promising.” Social workers have had to train themselves to run the SMU. There is no curriculum, manual or training program. The recent addition of therapeutic workbooks to the program has added structure to the SMU program. SMU Social workers are pleased with the recent installation of speaker phones in their offices. They use the phones to conduct family sessions with youth. At times, involving family members has helped resistant youth modify their behavior soon...