IL- Treatment provided for juvenile sex offenders

5-16-2008 Illinois:

Every day teachers and staff at Indian Oaks Academy are working to change the lives of over 100 troubled youngsters.

That work will be featured over the next few days as Steve Hamm and Daphne Bogenschneider of Indian Oaks Academy speak at the National Adolescent Perpetration Network Conference that opens on Saturday and runs through Monday in Portland, Ore.

Both will speak on management of the juvenile sex offender treatment program at Indian Oaks Academy. Hamm is the clinical supervisor for the girls' developmentally delayed psychiatric treatment and Bogenschneider is a senior therapist at the academy.

It is but one example of the scope of Indian Oaks Academy's programs, said executive director Michael Chavers, who earlier this month spoke at the National Juvenile Justice Training Symposium at Valley Forge, Pa.

"We provide treatment here for juvenile sex offenders and those with emotional, behavioral and/or psychiatric disturbances," Chavers said.

"Roughly 35 percent of our kids are registered sexual offenders," Chavers added. "That means that they have been adjudicated as a minor for any sexual offense."

But while the academy houses both juvenile sex offenders and disturbed youngsters, the programs are separated within the four buildings on Manteno's Diversatech campus. "These clients don't live together or interact together in any way," Chavers said.

"About 45 percent of our clients come here for other reasons such as severe emotional trauma or complex developmental disabilities. Indian Oaks also provides treatment for female residents with acute psychiatric or emotional problems at Riverside Medical Center's Chrysalis program in Kankakee.

"Last year 25 of the 58 youths placed at Indian Oaks were referred due to behavioral or psychiatric issues not related to sexual behavior problems," Chavers said.

The academy, one of four Nexus Treatment Centers, is licensed by the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services and accredited by the National Council on Accreditation.

It is one of many private institutions or physicians specializing in the treatment of juvenile sex offenders approved for referral by the Illinois Attorney General's Sex Offender Management Board. Other area agencies include the Onarga Academy, the Community Resource and Counseling Center in Paxton and Dr. James Simone and Associates in Bourbonnais.

"We have two monitors from DCFS who each spend 20 hours a week on campus," Chavers said. "They have free rein and can go anywhere or talk with anyone. Their times on campus vary so we don't know ourselves when or where they will be inspecting."

Jimmie Whitelow, a spokesman for DCFS, said the academy was "providing excellent and appropriate clinical services," when asked if problems had been reported to his agency.

Similarly Susan Guzman, a spokesperson for the Council on Accreditation, reported no sanctions against Indian Oaks Academy during a review of records from the past four years.

Chavers said that Nexus has a less than 3 percent recidivism rate according to its own follow-up monitoring surveys conducted between 2004 and 2007.

But, he added, "it is important to note that this is not a truly scientific recidivism rate because we are unable to collect information from all clients for the entire three-year period after discharge."

Privacy restrictions and the inability to reach some former clients resulted in 497 responses from a total of 654 former patients.

"Of those who we received follow-up information, only three were charged with additional sexual offenses. Forty-one other crimes were reported during the study and a total of 92 percent of those contacted remained crime free during the study."

Chavers said the academy's recidivism results mirrored the success rates seen in the Nexus study.

Nationwide 80,000 cases a year of child sexual abuse have been reported according to a 2004 report by the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.

In half of those cases, the offenders were adolescents themselves according to the report.

Quick facts on sexual assault

• The number of criminal sexual assaults in Illinois dropped 6.6 percent from 1,693 in 2005 to 1,501 in 2006 according to the Illinois State Police’s uniform crime report.

• Kankakee County, by comparison, saw a 39 percent decline in criminal sexual assaults from 77 in 2005 to 47 in 2006 according to the Illinois State Police.

~ Source: Illinois State Police, Uniform Crime Reports

Quick facts on Indian Oaks Academy

• Capacity: 112 (42 girls and women, 42 boys and men, and 16 developmentally delayed men, and 12 developmentally delayed women)

• Ages: 12 to 21

• Average length of stay: Nine to 18 months

• Medicaid certified and licensed as a child care institution by the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services

• Indian Oaks Academy and the Onarga Academy in Iroquois County are two of four Nexus treatment centers for those 12 to 21 years of age. The other centers are Mille Lacs and the Gerard Academy in Minnesota.