Forensic and high-risk behavioral consultation

The people this work serves

Adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities who have been involved with the justice system often fall between systems. Correctional and forensic mental health settings are rarely built around their learning needs, and community providers are often reluctant to accept them. Many spend long periods in secure psychiatric units, designated receiving facilities, or intensive treatment homes because no community placement feels safe enough.

That has been the center of my clinical career. I began in direct support at an agency serving adults with developmental disabilities, many of them justice-involved, and I have since supported more than a dozen high-risk forensic individuals moving from the New Hampshire Secure Psychiatric Unit, designated receiving facilities, and intensive treatment service homes into enhanced family care and community residential settings, with zero hands-on intervention.

What the work includes

• Behavioral risk assessments that identify the conditions under which risk behavior is more and less likely, and what supports reduce it.
• Community transition and support plans covering supervision levels, environmental arrangements, skill teaching, and step-down criteria.
• Staff training in forensic support, risk management, professional boundaries, and incident report writing.
• Skills-based programming, including Moral Reconation Therapy, which I am certified to facilitate, the application of DBT skills, and Aggression Replacement Training components.
• Restraint-free crisis prevention through MOTAB, which teaches the person intervening to manage their own behavior first.
• Interagency planning with guardians, case managers, treatment teams, and the professionals responsible for legal and clinical decisions.

How I approach risk

I treat risk as contextual. Behavior that leads to justice involvement serves a function for the person, just as other behavior does, and it becomes more or less likely depending on what surrounds it. Assessing those conditions and changing them is often more protective than restriction alone.

The Risk-Need-Responsivity model holds that interventions work best when their intensity matches a person’s risk, when they target the needs linked to offending, and when they are delivered in a way the person can learn from (Bonta & Andrews, 2017). That last principle, responsivity, is where applied behavior analysis is strongest. Individualized teaching, clear contingencies, and careful measurement are how behavior analysts make an intervention fit a learner, which is why I see behavioral methods as a practical way to deliver responsivity for adults with IDD. I am developing that argument in a conceptual paper now.

My risk assessments are functional and behavioral. I do not provide psychological evaluations, psychiatric diagnosis, or legal opinions, and I work alongside the professionals who do.

Background

• More than a dozen high-risk forensic individuals supported from secure settings into community homes with zero hands-on intervention.
• No restraint or seclusion reports filed with the State of New Hampshire.
• Developed and delivered forensic trainings including Forensics 101, High-Risk Forensics 101, Supporting High-Risk Individuals in the Community, and continuing education for behavior analysts on behavior analysis, forensics, and IDD.
• Certified Moral Reconation Therapy facilitator; training in military policing and criminal justice before entering human services.

Start a conversation

If you are planning a transition out of a secure setting, supporting someone your team is worried about, or training staff for high-risk work, I would be glad to talk. Please do not include identifying information in a first email.