Intensive family preservation services: an examination of critical service components

Abstract

A treatment programme for child victims of sexual abuse within the family has been evaluated in terms of psychological and behavioural outcomes for the young people two years after beginning therapy. The Canadian programme was based on principles established by Giarretto in his Child Sexual Abuse Treatment Program (CSATP). Screening by child protection workers selected potential candidates. However, because of limited resources, referral of less than half of the originally screened families was made, even though they were judged suitable for participation. This made available an untreated comparison group (n = 30), similar in many ways to the treated families (n = 27). After two years the treated adolescents had largely recovered levels of self‐esteem obtained in normative samples, and depressive affect had diminished markedly, as had problem behaviours. By contrast, the untreated adolescents had retained low levels of self‐esteem, and high levels of depression. Negative behaviours (delinquency, running away from home, acts of deliberate self‐harm) had deteriorated after two years. This was linked both to further within‐family abuse (in a fifth), followed by a drift in some into street life. Despite its apparent success, the CSATP could not be continued because of lack of funding, and problems in maintaining a community development model for supporting a humanistic programme.