Behavioural Intervention Strategies for Youth Justice

Upon successful completion of this course, the student will be able to:

1. Discuss that human behaviour is meaningful and constitutes an attempt on the part of the client to communicate.
2. Describe how behavioural intervention programs constitute one component of what needs to be a well thought out and comprehensive approach to meeting any client’s needs.
3. Recognize that new behaviours frequently need to be shaped through the reinforcement of successive approximations.
4. Describe how new behaviours once achieved will only be maintained if they are supported and reinforced in the client’s environment.              
5. Demonstrate the ability to set clear, measurable and obtainable goals in a behavioural intervention program and to specify how those goals will be reached and maintained.
6. Discuss that the use of punishment in an attempt to control behaviour has a negative impact on the relationship between the helper and the client as well as on the client’s self esteem.
7. Describe how in addition to being ineffective over time, punishment also constitutes poor modelling for the client as to how to relate to others.
8. Discuss how any behavioural intervention program must take into account both the individual development of the client and his or her culture.
9. Describe how practice the ethic that any behavioural intervention program must ultimately benefit the client and his or her important systems and must not be for the convenience of the system in which the client resides.
10. Describe how effective behavioural interventions are done with, not to, the client in the context of a healthy and respectful relationship.