The Sex Offender Management Board wants to come to your community!
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Do you want to hear what the SOMB has been up to? Join our Board members and staff at our annual on the road meeting.
Do you think your community could benefit from our board members' visit? The meetings are great ways to learn about current initiatives, issues changes and ways to get involved. It is also a great way to network with other professionals working in the field of sex offender management.
We can tell you that other jurisdictions have benefited from these type of events and learned a lot through the process. We want to make sure that you have an opportunity to share your experiences with the Board and also allow for you to receive new updates in policies and revisions to the Standards.
If you are interested in the SOMB coming to your area, please let us know! We would like to see your colleagues, teams and other stakeholders attend this meeting.
We look forward to connecting and engaging with you in your own Colorado community!
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Welcome New Board Member Glenn Knipscheer
Please allow us to introduce the newest board member. Glenn Knipscheer was appointed on January 19, 2019 as the Polygraph Examiner representative to the SOMB. Glenn has been conducting polygraphs with individuals who have committed sexual offenses for the past 21 years. He works with adults and juveniles, as well as adults and juveniles with developmental disabilities. Prior to his work with polygraph, Glenn provided counseling to both those who have committed sexual offenses as well as those who have been sexually victimized. We are very excited to have Glenn as a member of the SOMB and welcome him to the Board.
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The Domestic Violence and Sex Offender Management Conference is right around the corner. It’ll be held July 9-12, 2019 in beautiful Breckenridge, Colorado.
Registration will open soon. Want to get involved? There are opportunities to contribute to the prize raffle or reserve a vendor table. Contact Marina Borysov at 303.239.4199 or via
email
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Policy Update
This year, the Board finalized revisions to Section 5.700 of the Adult Standards, provides direction to teams regarding contact with victims, children and vulnerable populations. The updates reflect identified best practices as well as case law that has impacted how we do business. Some highlights include:
· Expanded direction on clarification procedures
· Further discussion regarding the application of exclusionary criteria
· Replacement of the Child Contact Assessment with the Child Contact Screening (including the elimination of specialized training requirements for evaluators)
· The recognition of the importance of pro-social family and peer support for clients
· Application of standards for contact with minors when the client is under the age of 18
· Guidance regarding notifying third party non-victim minor children and their parents of a client’s sexual offending behavior.
Recognizing the challenges of implementing such vast changes, the Board has granted 90 days to achieve full implementation. If you have questions, please do not hesitate to reach out to the Adult Standards Coordinator by clicking here.
Another policy we are implementing is our Training Policy.
Training events sponsored by the Office of Domestic Violence and Sex Offender Management will be subject to new guidelines effective August 1 st , 2019. For more information, please review the Training Policy
here
and if you have any questions,
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SOMB Committee Spotlight
The Sex Offender Management Board (SOMB) typically has about a dozen sub-committees meeting at any given point in time. The SOMB encourages all stakeholders to participate in the work of its sub-committees. All sub-committee meetings are open to the public and participation is also possible remotely via WebEx. Please contact the identified staff member point of contact for the sub-committee in which you are interested to be added to the email distribution list. A calendar of meetings can be found here
The Sex Offender Registration Legislative Work Group is one of the sub-committees of the SOMB. The Work Group is comprised of law enforcement officials along with other stakeholders interested in sex offender registration. The Work Group is chaired by SOMB law enforcement representative Detective Jeff Shay of the Pueblo Police Department. The Work Group typically focusses on coordination of registry services across different law enforcement agencies, and also identifies current challenges in carrying out registry functions. The Work Group has made a number of recommendations to the SOMB for changes in registry process and legislation. A recent example of such an issue was the challenges related to registering an incapacitated registrant. As a result of this concern, the Colorado State Legislature modified the registration statute to accommodate this registration population.
The Sex Offender Registration Legislative Work Group typically meets on a quarterly basis at different law enforcement agency offices. The next meeting of the Work Group is October 16, 2019 from 10:00 AM – 12:00 PM at the Lakewood Police Department, 445 S. Allison Parkway, Lakewood, CO 80226. We hope to see you all at the meeting. If you’d like to get on the distribution list, please email us
here
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Practice Corner
The SOMB believes strongly that as clients move from one treatment setting to the next continuity of care in the client’s treatment and safety parameters are necessary. Consequently, Section 7 of the Standards and Guidelines details requirements and best practices when working with adults and juveniles who have previous sex offense-specific treatment experience. The section, Continuity of Care and Information Sharing, outlines expectations for evaluation of previous treatment work in relation to current treatment needs. To that end, Appendix F includes an intake review form to assist in such a process. The section also details expectations that active safety plans not be suspended without a documented reason related to increased risk that compromises the safety plan as approved. Additionally, there is an expectation that if clients in previous treatment have been allowed contact with their own minor children or siblings, the contact continue in some form in order to minimize the grief and loss of the children in question. This is a particularly relevant when clients are transitioning due to positive treatment gains or successful parole to the community.
You may find contact information for previous treatment providers via the approved provider list. If the client is paroling from DOC’s treatment program, you may easily access a current list of providers and their contact information by clicking here.
For more details on Continuity of Care for clients leaving DOC, click
here
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Research Corner
A contemporary issue in the field of sex offender management is sex trafficking. While most of these offenders are male, there is a subgroup of female sex traffickers. Many of the women convicted of sex trafficking related offenses have a history of victimization, including previous emotional, physical, or sexual abuse (Rapael & Myers-Powers, 2010). In addition, many of the women also have a history of being trafficked themselves (Raphael & Myers-Power, 2010). The research suggests that one way women may become involved with sex trafficking is through their familial environment, with some even being trafficked by their family members (Miccio-Fonseca, 2017). Another way that women become involved is by an influential male partner who is linked to sex trafficking (Broad, 2015). Given the research, there should be an emphasis on trauma-informed care when treating these women.
Be on the lookout for an upcoming white paper on the issue of Female Sex Traffickers.
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Upcoming Training
Our office is working hard to create easy to access webinars on the standards. This will give our treatment providers easier access to the standards and be aware of what changes if any have occurred and how to implement them in the field.
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We also have know of many important trainings available that are not hosted by the SOMB but we strongly encourage our stakeholders to participate in.
Click here
for opportunities from Global Institute of Forensic Research
Kempe Center Training for May and June
For current listing of what’s available and to see our partner’s listings, please visit our
website
.
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