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The Family Integrated Transitions (FIT) program provides integrated individual and family services to juvenile offenders who have mental health and chemical dependency disorders during their transition from incarceration back into the community. The goals of the FIT program include lowering the risk of recidivism, connecting the family with appropriate community supports, achieving youth abstinence from alcohol and other drugs, improving the mental health of the youth, and increasing prosocial behavior.
FIT is based on components of three programs: multisystemic therapy (MST), dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), and motivational enhancement therapy (MET). The overarching framework of FIT is derived from MST, a preservation model for community-based treatment. This treatment component uses therapists to coach caregivers in establishing productive partnerships with schools, community supports, parole, and other systems and help caregivers develop skills to be effective advocates for those in their care. While the MST component concentrates on the extent to which environments around the youth support prosocial behavior, FIT incorporates elements of DBT to address individual-level characteristics by replacing maladaptive emotional and behavioral responses with more effective and skillful responses. Finally, FIT uses aspects of MET to engage youths in treatment, with the objective of increasing their commitment to change. FIT therapists use MET techniques to develop the initial engagement of all parties and to maintain the commitment throughout the treatment.
The FIT program begins in a youth’s final 2 months in a Juvenile Rehabilitation Administration (JRA) facility and continues for 4 to 6 months during parole supervision. The FIT team consists of contracted therapists, including children’s mental health specialists and chemical dependency professionals. The FIT team serves four to six families at any given time. Services are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. JRA is responsible for identifying eligible youths and works closely with the therapists and FIT families. To be eligible for the youth program a youth must be under 17½, be in a JRA institution and scheduled to be released to 4 or more months of parole, reside in one of four designated Washington State counties (King, Kitsap, Pierce, or Snohomish), have a substance abuse or dependence disorder and any of the following: any Axis 1 disorder, a currently prescribed psychotropic medication, or demonstrated suicidal behavior within the last 3 months.
This evaluation used a quasi-experimental design. The sample included 104 youths who participated in FIT and served as the treatment group. The control group included 169 FIT-eligible youths who did not participate in FIT because they returned to counties where the project was unavailable; this group received usual JRA parole services. Since the study did not use random assignment, logistic regression was used to determine any significant differences between groups. There were no significant differences for gender, age at release, Native American ethnicity, age at first prior conviction, prior drug convictions, criminal history, or prior person (violent) convictions. However, there were significant differences on four variables: ISCA risk assessment scores, African-American ethnicity, Hispanic ethnicity, and the degree to which a county was either urban or rural. The ISCA is JRA’s tool that measures an offender’s overall risk for re-offense. Treatment group participants were more likely to be African-American and less likely to be Hispanic. This was expected because the counties that were eligible for the FIT program were more urban, more and ethnically black, and less Hispanic than the non-FIT counties. This evaluation compared the recidivism rates of both the treatment and control groups to determine program effects.
The evaluation found that the FIT program has a statistically significant effect on the felony recidivism rate. At 18 months postrelease, the felony recidivism was 34 percent less for FIT youth (27 percent) than for the comparison group (41 percent). However, there was no significant effect on the total recidivism rate (including felony or misdemeanor reconvictions), though the results are in the direction of lowering this rate. There was also no significant effect on the violent felony recidivism rate (which is usually a relatively rare event in the 18-month follow-up period), though the results are in the direction of lowering this rate as well. A cost–benefit analysis of the FIT program indicated that for every $1.00 spent on FIT, $3.15 is saved in criminal justice expenses and avoided criminal victimization.
Aos, Steve. 2004. Washington State’s Family Integrated Transitions Program for Juvenile Offenders: Outcome Evaluation and Benefit–Cost Analysis. Olympia, Wash.: Washington State Institute for Public Policy.
Eric W. Trupin, Ph.D.
Division of Public Behavioral Health and Justice Policy
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
University of Washington School of Medicine
146 North Canal Street, Suite 100
Seattle, WA 98103
Phone: (206) 685-2085
E-mail: trupin@u.washington.edu
Eric W. Trupin, Ph.D.
Division of Public Behavioral Health and Justice Policy
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
University of Washington School of Medicine
146 North Canal Street, Suite 100
Seattle, WA 98103
Phone: (206) 685-2085
E-mail: trupin@u.washington.edu
