Pathways Program Implementation Guide for Distribution
The Pathways Program Implementation Guide: How to Use Pathways to Healthy Sexuality, Good Life, and The Chaperon Workbook.
Pathways Program
The Pathways Program is a treatment program for adults whose harmful or abusive sexual behavior has caused them problems with their personal, social, familial, or occupational functioning. The Pathways Program uses three therapy-oriented workbooks: Pathways to Healthy Sexuality, The Good Life, and The Chaperon Workbook. Of them, Pathways to Healthy Sexuality is an original part of the Pathways Program; in fact, the program was named after the workbook. However, Pathways to Healthy Sexuality itself does not fully constitute the Pathways Program, because all three workbooks are needed to implement the program.
Program Description
If your goal is to conduct a holistic treatment program for clients who use harmful or abusive sexual behavior, you can’t use one workbook but not use the others. To rehabilitate adults who engage in sexual abuse, then you need to provide offense-specific treatment, psychoeducational treatment that teaches prosocial skills, and treatment that helps the client develop a support group. The Pathways Program does all these things.
Pathways to Healthy Sexuality (Ferrara, 2024) is a cognitive behavioral, offense-specific treatment workbook for adults who sexually abuse others. The assignments in the workbook are designed to help clients who have been convicted of or adjudicated for sexual offenses to stop engaging in harmful or abusive sexual behavior. The assignments in Pathways to Healthy Sexuality should be viewed as “stop” assignments, so to speak. That is, the client should use the assignments to stop engaging in harmful or abusive sexual behavior.
By contrast, The Good Life (Ferrara, 2022) is a collection of positive psychology psychoeducational assignments designed to help clients build skills to become happy and successful in life. Assignments in The Good Life are based on positive psychology and focus on topics such as thought patterns, emotions, relationships, and self-management. The assignments can be viewed as “go” assignments. That is, the client can use the assignments to start meeting his or her needs in healthy ways.
Last, The Chaperon Workbook contains material that you can use to train chaperons to accompany clients into high-risk areas. To complete the chaperon training process, the client needs to be open and honest about his or her harmful or abusive sexual behavior. Such honesty unlocks the door and allows other people in the client’s life. The chaperon training process also creates a support network that the client can rely on now and when he or she is no longer in treatment.
The Chaperon Workbook can be used when there’s a need to train chaperons. Clients should use Pathways to Healthy Sexuality and The Good Life for the entire time that they are in treatment. The best way to achieve that goal is for the client to participate in a program that uses 90-minute group therapy sessions. Different parts of each group therapy session could be dedicated to using both Pathways to Healthy Sexuality and The Good Life.
- The Good Life. Begin each group therapy session by discussing one lesson from The Good Life. Clients, not the treatment provider, should teach the lessons in the workbook. To teach a lesson, a client should follow a simple three-step process. The client should read a paragraph from the lesson, explain the paragraph, and once finished, ask fellow group members for input about the paragraph. When there’s no more input, then the client should use the same formula—read, explain, and ask for input—to teach the entire lesson. That part of the group session should take about 30 minutes.
- Pathways to Healthy Sexuality. In the next part of the group therapy session, for about 45 to 50 minutes, one or two clients should present an assignment from Pathways to Healthy Sexuality. Each client should read his or her assignment and receive feedback from fellow group members and the treatment provider. The client must write down the feedback. Once the group session is over, the client should revise his or her responses to the questions on the worksheet. The client should continue to present and revise the same assignment until the treatment provider approves the completion of the assignment.
- Self-Management. In the next portion of the group therapy session, clients should report any problems or successes that they experienced in the past week. Clients should also report and discuss any violations of their treatment or supervision rules. This part of the group therapy session is the shortest portion of the session and typically lasts about 10 minutes.
Good offense-specific treatment helps clients stop engaging in behavior that’s sexually abusive. Once a client has stopped engaging in sexually abusive behavior, there’s always a void. There’s a hole in the client’s life where the maladaptive behavior used to be. Offense-specific treatment can’t fill that void, but psychoeducational training can.
Psychoeducational training is the process of teaching clients healthy, prosocial skills. Psychoeducational training teaches clients what to do instead of engaging in sexually abusive behavior. The client can use the positive life skills learned in psychoeducational training to fill the void where sexually abusive behaviors used to be.
Perhaps now it’s clearer why you can’t use just one workbook without the others. You have to provide offense-specific treatment at the same time as psychoeducational training. On top of that, you have to create a lifelong support group that will be there once the client is no longer in treatment.
There’s only one goal for the Pathways Program: No More Victims. The best way to achieve that goal is to help the client create a good life. You’re not only helping the client to stop engaging in harmful or abusive sexual behavior. You’re also helping the client experience happiness and success.