Esther Israel writes (July 2021) about a job held in the time frame of summer 2014 to fall 2015
In the winter of 2012, I obtained an associate clinical mental health counselor license from the Division of Occupational and Professional Licensing within the Utah Department of Commerce. After I had completed all the graduate level coursework and practicum hours that were required of me for this licensure, I was next required to obtain 4000 hours of paid supervised mental health work. I was working full time as a psychological testing assistant at Utah State Hospital in the psychology discipline. None of my psychologist supervisors and my psychologist colleagues were amenable to sign off on the assessment work that I was doing for them toward full licensure as a clinical mental health counselor. I sought other employment for the purpose of obtaining 4000 supervised hours toward licensure as a clinical mental health counselor. I could only work one day a week given my full time schedule at Utah State Hospital. This would mean it would take me several years to become fully licensed. I considered a few job opportunities in mental health based on my experiences at these placements when I clerked for them during my time as a clinical psychology doctoral student at the University of Utah (2002-2009). I also sought assurance from those potential supervisors of their willingness to sign off on my hours toward licensure. I chose a private outpatient program for people charged with a sexual offense. I figured this would be a good fit with my interests in forensic psychology and sexuality. I was correct.
The clientele consisted of mostly white men ranging from ages 18 to 80. They were usually charged and awaiting conviction for accessing “child porn,” meaning that the pornography they had viewed involved someone under the legal age of consent. There were a few men with “hands on” offenses, meaning that they had physical contact with another. Other individuals were charged with a sexual offense due to their online conversations with undercover Federal Bureau of Investigation agents posing as 13 year old boys or girls. The law enforcement agent would further the conversation and request to meet up and ask the other party to bring condoms or a specific item to their first meeting. When these men showed up to the meeting with those items, they were arrested. Their compliance with the requests of the law enforcement agent posing as a 13 year old was taken by law enforcement as intent to commit a sexual crime against a minor.
Some of these men had supportive wives and girlfriends who came with them to my psychoeducation classes and group therapy series. Most were kind to one another and went out of their way to show me respect for my good work and advocacy with them. Before and after our meetings, as well as in between class and group, we had conversations about their experiences of entrapment and their drastic demotion in society as a result of their public shaming. Many of these men resented their label of “sex offender” and feared for their careers and financial future. Simply by being affiliated with these men in sex offender specific treatment, I too became tainted. When I told people what kind of work I was doing, I would get a question or comment about pedophiles and my safety. (I am well aware that there are dangerous and disturbed people who commit sexual offenses, but they are not typically assigned to outpatient treatment.) I did not like the erroneous assumptions people made about my work, so I responded to the question or comment, “Well, at least I’m not their type, since I’m an adult.”
Most of the men in this treatment setting had an Adult Probation and Parole officer to whom they reported and submitted to random and scheduled checks, including scheduled reports from me. Their probation agreement required completion of a Department of Corrections Approved Sex Offender Specific Treatment program. I was required to become a “certified provider of sex offender treatment of offenders under the supervision of the Department of Corrections” in order to work at this agency. It is counterproductive to repeatedly use the word offender in a treatment setting. How can we expect someone to do better and get better when we bring up something from the past in a way that keeps the present static? Another thing that struck me was that the Utah Department of Corrections’ curriculum for education and rehabilitation of those charged with sexual offenses hadn’t changed in more than 10 years. (I had clerked at this facility from 2005-2007 while a graduate student at the University of Utah.) That meant we were applying outdated treatments and inaccurate labels. First, do no harm!
I visited the Utah Department of Corrections website (which was recently updated in 2020) and made note of all the topics that people in Sex Offender Specific Treatment were required to learn and the amount of hours it would take them to graduate. These topics included: (1) victim empathy, (2) relapse prevention, (3) abuse/assault cycle, (4) cognitive restructuring/thinking errors, (5) parenting, (6) relationship skills, and (7) sex education. I included other topics based on need (e.g., anger management and life skills) or request (e.g., anxiety and depression). The group surprised me by asking to learn about pedophilia, as they didn’t know very much about it, but had been called pedophiles. Apparently, they were aware of society’s mistake of treating the term ‘sex offender’ and ‘pedophile’ as synonymous.
I had 70 hours or 18 months to cover all the topics required by the Utah Department of Corrections. I based my class materials on the best research evidence for effective techniques and therapeutic relationships. For one hour of class each week, I lectured, facilitated discussions, and reviewed homework. I organized the talking points in PowerPoint presentations, which I handed out at the beginning of each class and/or via email attachment. I am particularly pleased with my lessons on empathy, accountability, healthy relationships, and yes, pedophilia. If you are interested in reviewing these and other slide handouts I prepared as part of the sex offender specific treatment curriculum I facilitated between June 2014 and October 2015, please reach out to me.
Comments