Vice President (Interim) Research and Academics, and Professor, Department of Psychiatry, University of Toronto, Canada
The Evidence Based Practices in Forensic Mental Health Project
In Ontario Canada, there are 9 regional forensic mental health programs dispersed across a vast geographic area.· The Ontario Forensic Directors Group (Clinical and Administrative Directors from all of the regional programs) have been engaged in a province wide web based collaboration to identify empirically supported interventions and assessments and to write clinical guidelines to be implemented in the programs. This presentation will provide an overview of the project and a demonstration of the Microsoft Sharepoint© website resource we have built to support the remote collaboration.
Professor Randy BorumCollege of Behavioral and Community Sciences
University of South Florida, USA
Assessing Individual Risk for Terrorism Involvement
Integral to comprehensive counterterrorism efforts, assessing and mitigating risk are not simply challenges of classification or pure prediction; they are endeavors of prevention. One of the most fundamental challenges for terrorism-related risk assessment is this: Different people become (or remain) involved in different terrorism-related activities in different ways, for different reasons, at different times. Involvement appears to be an individualized process initiated and sustained by an array of causes, which may include grievances that “push” individuals toward terrorism and “pull” factors that incentivize or attract them. Assessing risk and preventing terrorism involvement will require that an evaluator understand the function and meaning of potential causes, behaviors, and roles for the individual. Ideas about possible ways forward for these assessments will be presented for consideration.
Dr. Bruce D. PerryThe Child ·Trauma Academy, USA
The development of a young child is profoundly influenced by experience.· Experiences – good and bad - shape the organization of the brain. The ultimate effect is to impact emotional, social, cognitive and physiological functioning.· Insights into this process come from understanding brain development. Both trauma and neglect, the absence of essential developmental experiences required to express a fundamental potential of a child, are pervasive problems in our culture. Various forms of neglect are possible and include splinter neglect, total global neglect and emotional or relational neglect. Chaos, threat and abnormal patterns of emotional, social, cognitive and physical interactions with young children lead to an array of brain-related problems. This presentation will review clinical work and research that can help us better understand developmental trauma, neglect and the relational problems that arise from neglect and threat.· An overview will be provided that suggests new directions for clinical practice, program development and policy.
Professor Lindsay Thomson Professor of Forensic Psychiatry, The University of Edinburgh, Scotland
Medical Director, The State Hospital & Forensic Network
The association between schizophrenia and an increased risk of violence has been repeatedly demonstrated in various studies. Regardless of the origins of forensic mental health services, international comparisons have shown that the focus for most is on the management of offenders with psychosis. The costs of these services are significant. In England in 2009-10, it is estimated that 1% of the total health service budget was spent on secure psychiatric provision. With such significant spending, the question that arises is how well do we do with these individuals in terms of their care and management of their risk. This presentation considers the outcomes of mentally disordered offenders over ten years examining location, further violence and offending, symptoms and social circumstances; along with the effects of comorbid substance misuse and personality disorder. The influence of new legislation and the introduction of a formal risk management process on outcomes will be described.