Assessing the Enhanced Ranch Program of the Santa Clara County Probation Department

In 2006, the Santa Clara County Probation Department (SCCPD) changed its approach to serving youth in two of its juvenile justice programs--the William F. James Boys' Ranch and the Muriel Wright Center. The overarching objectives of the change were to provide specific therapeutic services to youth and families while maintaining a commitment to public safety. The new cognitive-behavioral model marks a vastly different structure and philosophy, patterned after the evidence-based program developed by the Missouri Division of Youth Services. The new model, entitled the Enhanced Ranch Program, targets youth heavily entrenched in the juvenile justice system and emphasizes positive, peer-based group interactions and a holistic approach to developing individual case plans. Specially trained teams of staff work with small groups of youth offenders.Teams function as therapeutic units that share the daily activities of life with youth and focus on their critical thinking, personal development, and group processes. The Enhanced Ranch Program serves high-risk, high- need youth with gang affiliations, substance abuse issues, and significant criminal histories. This model was designed to improve outcomes for youth with extensive criminal histories by ensuring that they receive the most appropriate and purposeful services. The primary focus is to help youth internalize healthy behavior that will help them succeed.In November, 2008, Santa Clara County Chief Probation Officer Sheila Mitchell, commissioned NCCD to evaluate the implementation of the Enhanced Ranch Program. In large part, this report presents the findings of a process evaluation--an analysis of the specific structure and practice instituted by the County. It also presents some preliminary outcomes for youth

The young people's consultation service: An evaluation of a consultation model of very brief psychotherapy

The Young People's Consultation Service (YPCS) is a four‐session, self‐referral, psychodynamically‐oriented psychotherapeutic consultation service for young people aged between 16 and 30, at the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust in London. Aim: It was hypothesized that clients would show an improvement on outcome measures at the end of the four sessions. It was also hoped that the data would identify characteristics of the clients who show the most benefit. Method: A review of the case‐notes of all clients attending the service between January 2003 to April 2006 was carried out, and details were entered into a database, including demographic information, presenting issues and attendance. Clients were given the Youth Self‐Report form (YSR) (Achenbach, 1991) or the Young Adult Self Report form (YASR) (Achenbach, 1997), according to age, before the start of the intervention and at the end of the four sessions. Outcome data were analysed, comparing pre‐ and post‐treatment scores on the YSR/YASR. Results: A total of 236 clients attended the service during the study period. Pre‐ to post‐comparison data on the YSR/YASR was available for 24 clients. Of those, YSR/YASR scores reduced significantly on all subscales and severity reduced over time in all cases. In addition, there was a trend towards moving from the clinical to the non‐clinical range, reaching statistical significance on the Internalizing and Total subscales. A number of YPCS clients showed both statistically significant and clinical improvement on the Internalizing and Externalizing scales of the YSR/YASR, with a greater number showing improvement on the Internalizing scale. Conclusions: Improvements were found on all subscales of the YSR/YASR at the end of the four session intervention. A greater number of clients showed improvement on the Internalizing subscale, suggesting that this form of very brief psychotherapy is most effective for clients with emotional problems

AACSB‐Accredited Schools’ Adoption of Information Security Curriculum

The need to professionally and successfully conduct computer forensic investigations of incidents has never been greater. This has launched an increasing demand for a skilled computer security workforce (Locasto, et al., 2011). This paper examines the extent to which AACSB-accredited universities located in Virginia, Maryland and Washington, D.C. are working towards providing courses that will meet this demand. The authors conduct an online research of the information security courses and programs offered by the 27 AACSB-accredited business schools in the selected area. The preliminary investigation revealed that eight of the 27 participating universities did not offer any courses in cybersecurity, digital forensics, and information assurance. However, nearly 70% of the participating universities have included at least one or more information security courses in their curricula and some universities have implemented more extensive information security programs. This paper will describe the research methodology and results of the study. Keywords: digital forensics, information assurance, cybersecurity, information technology, information security, computer securit