Description

Description:
Sexually Violent Persons (SVP) commitment laws in the United States require that forensic evaluators complete comprehensive assessments on often complicated cases. The adversarial nature of the commitment trial in which the evaluator may offer testimony as well as the need to balance liberty and community safety requires that SVP evaluators are knowledgeable, well-trained, and competent.

This full-day workshop is geared towards professionals who have background in risk assessment and are interested in becoming SVP evaluators, are relatively new to completing SVP evaluations, are established SVP evaluators who may wish to hone their skills, and attorneys who wish to know the ins and outs of the SVP evaluation process.

We will cover the following:
(1) How the wording of SVP statutes in different states can affect methodological choices;
(2) How to answer the predisposing mental disorder question;
(3) The existing choices of risk assessment tools and the pros and cons for each;
(4) How to address questions of lifetime risk for sexual offending and undetected sexual offending;
(5) Types of bias common in forensic evaluations and bias mitigation strategies;
(6) Best practices for SVP report writing;
(7) Application of important research studies for risk assessment and testimony purposes;
(8) How to prevent and address bad habits related to assessment procedures and report writing;
(9) Communicating with attorneys; and
(10) tips for testimony with case examples and discussion.