Dr. Kruh co-presents "Narrative Risk Formulations of Youths Who Have Sexually Harmed" for Safer Society

On 6/4/25, Dr. Kruh presented a webinar with Keith Cruise, PhD, MLS, (Director of Behavioral Screening at National Youth Screening and Assessment Partners and Associate Professor at Fordham University) on the topic of Narrative Formulations in evaluations of youth who have sexually harmed. More information about the training is below. It will soon be available on-demand at Safer Society. Please see: https://safersociety.org/continuing-education/all-on-demand-trainings/  

If you want to bring Dr. Kruh to your group or agency to receive training in evaluations of youth who have engaged in problematic sexual behavior, or if you are hoping to have an evaluation conducted for a youth who has engage din problematic sexual behavior, please reach out to Dr. Kruh at [email protected].

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Our understanding of the risks and needs of youths who have sexually harmed has advanced in recent years. Whereas assessments once looked only at those risk factors that signal dangerousness, they now employ a more comprehensive approach that takes into account:

• The youth’s protective factors
• The youth’s developmental status
• Multiple contexts in which the youth exists (e.g., home, school, and community environments)

Further, many authors have pointed out that identifying risk factors is not nearly as helpful as explaining how risk factors and protective factors have occurred and combined to make harmful behaviors more or less likely to occur. Over time, these risk and protective factors form a narrative—a story of how the youth came to behave the way they have.
In this training, Drs. Kruh and Cruise explain how the risk assessments of the past have evolved into comprehensive, structured methods for understanding and explaining a youth’s potential for harmful behavior. Narrative risk formulations are a key component of assessment and management in mental health and criminal justice settings. The presenters examine:

• A model for narrative risk formulation
• Essential knowledge about adolescent development and developmental psychopathology
• Current data on adolescent sexual re-offense rates
• How trauma plays a role in sexual abuse by adolescents
• “Scenario planning” to identify situations for potential abuse

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