If you have issues viewing or accessing this file, please contact us at NCJRS.gov. 2olsa~ ....... ,., ..~,.,~,,.,.., (~Cj;o~r3) Model Treatment aria Services Ap ~roa¢.nes }or. Men~HOaith; Professtonal~' , : Wor~~:" ki" :~!g!::::: #ith Fam~ities~: g Family Abducted Ch~i~(dren ratntng Manuat THE WESTERN CENTERFORCHILD PROTECTION . SUBMITTED TO U.S. Dep~irtment 0f Justice - Office of Justice Programs - office6fjuveni[e Justice and DelinquencJ~,Prevention Model Treatment and Services Approaches for Professionals Working with " " Families of Family Abducted Children Treatment Manual~ Western Center for Child Protection Reno, Nevada JoAnn Behrman-Lippert, Ph.D. Director and Prinicipal:Investigat0r University of California, San Francisco Center for the Study of Trauma Chris Hatcher, Ph.D. Associate Investigator The Model Treatment Services and Approaches for Mental Health Professionals Working With Families of Missing Children was supported by the Agreement Number 93-MC-CX- 0003 from the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, U. S. Department of ~ Justice. Points of view or opinions expressed in this document are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official position or policies of the U. S. Department. of Justice. Acknowledgments The authors wish to acknowledge the advice, support and assistance of all involved. Not listed here are the names of the mental health professionals, recovered children and parents who shared their experiences and made this training manual possible. We extend special thanks to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and to Didi Hirsch Community Mental Health Center for their support by making it possible to field test and extend the model and make this project a success. And a special thank you to the therapists at those sites: Carolyn Murphy, Ph.D. who was the project consultant at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and Kita Curry, Ph.D.; Monica Jenson, L.C.S.W.; and Susan Wojtkiewicz, MFCC, ATR, from Didi Hirsch Community Mental Health Center in Los Angeles, California. Western Center for Child Project Advisory Board Protection Staff JoAnn Behrman-Lippert, Ph.D. Jon Conte, Ph.D. Project Director and Prinicpal Investigator Professor of Social Work, University of Washington Lynn Cook Administrative Secretary Geoffery Greif, DSW Professor of Social Work, University of California, University of Maryland San Francisco Roland C. Summit, M.D. Chris Hatcher, Ph.D. Psychiatric Community Associate Investigator Consultation Service, Harbor-UCLA Medical Center Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Peter Freivalds Grant Monitor Ron Laney Director, Missing Children's Program Table of Contents Introduction The Model Treamtment Project Chapter 1 The Missing Child Problem 4 Chapter 2 Missing Children and Their Famiiiesi The ABCX Model for Understanding Trauma Effects 18 Chapter 3 Children Recovered from Family Abduction: A Model Treatment Program 40 Chapter 4 Four Family Abduction Case Studies 79 Chapter 5 Sample Treatment Techniques and Therapist Questions 117 Chapter 6 Resources 128 Chapter 7 References 131 Appendices Appendix A - Parental Abduction Case Summary 134 Appendix B - Reunification Protocol 138 INTRODUCTION-THE MODEL TREATMENT PROJECT The Need Few issues in recent years have generated as much legislative activity, media attention and public interest group activity as the problem of missing children. The U.S. Congress and almost every state legislature has passed legislation to increase the responsiveness of law enforcement to child abduction cases. The publicity of the search for missing children has become a common part of television news broadcasts and missing children photographs appear on milk cartons, grocery bags, airport/department store flyers and on the Internet. A substantial number of non- profit, public interest groups have been created to assist in searches and to promote preventative education programs as an accepted part of the education curriculum in school districts throughout the United States. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children serves as a clearinghouse of information and assistance to families with an abducted child. State police agencies have developed specialized units, such as the Illinois State Police I-SEARCH Unit, to enhance local investigative effectiveness. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has established a special unit to investigate child abductions. Much of the legislative and public awareness advances have focused on recovering the child. The timeliness with which law enforcement now responds increases the likelihood that the child will be recovered for reunification. Even in brief abductions, the child can be exposed to emotional and physical trauma. Law enforcement is not trained or equipped to respond to the emotional consequences of abduction for the child or the family. When a child is recovered, the expectation is that the moment of reunification will be filled with joy and relief for the child and the family. The meeting often occurs in a police station or hospital. The police officers and detectives who have worked diligently to reunite the child and waiting family are often the only people to witness the reunification. The moment is not always joy and relief, but anxious and confusing. This need was addressed in a prior project, The Reunification of Missing Children. That project, along with the Families of Missing Children Project: Psychological Consequences of Abduction, identified a further need. Depending on how long the child has been missing and the details of the abduction experience, the impact of abduction typically spans beyond the reunification experience. Yet, to this point, there has not been the specialized knowledge to address the unique needs of the recovered child and their family. The literature lacks any reference to a specific treatment approach to work with the special needs of this population of children and their families. I-1 In response to this need, the U.S. Department of Justice through the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) funded the Model Treatment Services Approaches for Mental Health Professionals Working with Missing Children and Their Families. Model Treatment Approaches for Missing Children and their Families: Education and Training for Mental Health Professionals The Project Goal: The goal of the Model Treatment Project is to increase knowledge of and develop effective treatment and services approaches for mental health professionals working with families of missing children in order to minimize the psychological consequences experienced by these child victims and their families. Model Treatment Project Manual: The Model Treatment Manual is designed to provide mental health professionals with a guide to the assessment and treatment of psychological trauma associated with child abduction. The Manual is intended to assist mental health professionals in first stabilizing family units upon recovery of missing children, and subsequently supporting the members of these family units and the returned child to recover effectively from the emotional trauma of child abduction. Use of the Manual: The Model Treatment manual is intended to be used as a reference resource and guide for specialized knowledge and skills related to family abduction of children in order to provide effective therapeutic services to recovered children and their families. Content: The Model Treatment manual contains the following sections: 1. The Missing Child Problem. This section briefly reviews the legislative/governmental response to the problem; the history and scope of the missing child problem in America; and brief summaries of the findings in The Families of Missing Children Project and Reunification of Missing Children Project. 2. Missing Children and their Families: the ABCX Model for Understanding Trauma Effects. This section presents the ABCX Model of Family Adaptation to Stress as developed by Hamilton McCubbin of the University of Wisconsin. The ABCX Model is utilized in this Manual as a methodology to organize the complex amount of information present in child abduction cases, to assess the impact of the abduction event upon child and family and to assist in treatment planning. The use of the ABCX Model promotes effective communication by providing for a common language among mental I-2 health professionals working with families of missing children. The ABCX Model is applied by presenting a detailed case history. The information is then organized according to the ABCX Model. 3. Children Recovered from Family Abduction and their Families" A Model Treatment Program. Based upon research and clinical experience with children recovered from family abduction and their families, a Model Treatment Program (MTP) has been developed. The Model Treatment Program consists of four Stages. Stage I deals with the initial recovery of the child and the reunification with the family. Stage II describes the initial short term trauma response pattern for recovered children and their families, including important questions for assessment of the child and family. Stage III describes the long term trauma response pattern for recovered children and their families. Stage IV describes termination/periodic recontact for recovered children and their families. 4. Family Child Abduction: Four Full Length Case Histories. In this section, the mental health professional is provided with full length case narratives that cover the pre-abduction