The Strengths/Structured Assessment for Youth (S/SAY): the strengts interest within a reoffending risk assessment tool

The assessment and intervention of justice-involved youth in order to their socialreintegration is a central aim of juvenile justice. Currently, assessment focuses on theprediction of recidivism by mainly examining risk factors through the Risk-Need-Responsivity (RBR) model. In French-speaking Belgium, the University of Liege has beenworking on integrating strengths alongside risk factors in the assessment of justiceinvolvedyouth within S/SAY (Strengths/Structured Assessment for Youth). A strength isdefined as the adolescent’s internal or external capacities that enable them to meet theirlife goals in a prosocial manner, whereas the assessment of risk factors is based on theclassic YLS-CMI assessment adapted to Belgian justice-involved youth. First, we willoutline the conceptual distinction between a protective factor and a strength. We willdiscuss this distinction in terms of their definition, operationalisations, and mechanisms.Second, we will present S/SAY and emphasise its specificities. Third, we will present theresearch protocol and design, as well as the methodology for evaluating the psychometricqualities of S/SAY. Thus, on two settings (one in Quebec and the other in Belgium), thegoals of reliability (the consistency of the S/SAY items and indicators scores), predictivevalidity (associated with the reoffending risk) and incremental validity (the added valueassociated with the addition of strengths), but also social validity (the perception thatsocial workers have of the S/SAY use) will be presented. This research protocol combinesmixed data and two types of samples: the first one is composed of justice-involved youth’sfiles (girls and boys) who are prosecuted for an offense, the second one is composed ofsocial workers using S/SAY (social workers in juvenile detention centres for Belgium andprobation officers for Quebec). Finally, this poster will discuss the implications of a partlystrength-based assessment in the management of justice-involved youth.
Approche basée sur les forces du mineur en conflit avec la loi (MCL) en milieu de placement : validation et effets sur la récidive