Offender Group

FLP Offender Treatment

For the benefit of all children and families, it is important for sexual offenders to obtain treatment. Without treatment, many children may be at high risk for abuse. With treatment, the cycle of abuse can be broken. Therefore, an essential part of treating and helping our children, is to treat the offenders. Before joining our program, some offenders may spend time in jail, some are court ordered to treatment and put on probation, others come to us voluntarily before sentencing or knowing they need help to prevent themselves from offending again. All offenders who are eligible for our program admit that they have offended. To protect children, we follow the Florida law to report if any child is suspected of being abused.

A cognitive-behavioral relapse prevention model is used based on national guidelines set forth by the Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers (ATSA) in their handbook.

Link: http://www.atsa.com/

The FLP offers:

• Adult offenders group Victim (including therapy for abuse-reactive children),
• Sibling, and Non-offending
• Caregiver group therapy Individual, marital and family therapy
• Family Reunification if applicable.

We coordinate treatment for perpetrator, spouse and victim in cases of incest. Each family member starts out in their own groups, often have individual therapy in addition, then when each member has progressed and continues to express an interest in reunification and it is deemed safe to do so, couples and then family therapy is provided. Therapists for each family member work together as a treatment team to insure that all children are safe and not being manipulated by the offender.

Offender Treatment Philosophy, Techniques and Approaches

Sample Letters From Offenders

These are some sample letters from offenders who were or are currently under treatment with the FLP Program. The purpose these were written and are here is to educate and to help understand sex offenders.

Letter #1

I am in therapy because I sexually abused, or molested, my step-daughter and a female child relative when they were 12 years old.

I am on probation for 15 years, and in counseling/therapy for as long as I need to be.

I was caught, thankfully, because the female relative told my wife what I had done to her. I moved out of the house that same evening and went straight into an inpatient alcohol treatment program. Upon my release three weeks later, I found an adults-only apartment and began counseling to find out why I sexually abused the kids. I cooperated fully with the police and other authorities during this time. About ten months later I was arrested, and upon release six weeks later, I found this program. I have been here going on 5 years.

When I first began molesting my step-daughter, I told myself that I was teaching her about sex. I really didn't believe that I was doing anything really bad or harmful. In my mind I wasn't a pervert, I was just messing around. I was just bored. I was lying to myself, justifying my thoughts, feelings and behaviors. I didn't want to admit to myself the powerful state of arousal, the feeling of power, the excitement or thrill of getting away with dirty sex. I slowly began to manipulate my step-daughter into thinking that what I was doing (in my mind, what we were doing) was okay. I elevated her above the other kids, made her feel older, more adult, more mature. I elevated her to my level. There no adult-child line marked in the sand anymore, I had erased that, robbing her of her adolescence. I found it very hard to face what I was doing. I started drinking more and more to escape the guilt. But the drinking also gave me an excuse to keep on abusing. It also gave me something to blame my behavior on. My drinking made it easier to molest again, this was my deviant cycle.

When I first started therapy, I blamed the alcohol for my problems. I also blamed my step-daughter, my wife, my job, financial situation; everybody and everything except myself. In time, I came to accept full responsibility for molesting the kids. No matter what external factors were in place, it was my internal desires that drove me to abuse. I have learned a lot about myself, good and bad, in therapy.

I have faced down a lot of demons, had some setbacks, and made some breakthroughs. I have more work to do before I become the man that I want to be.

As for my victims, both direct and indirect (my wife and the kids I didn't molest), there is still work to be done. I have, through counseling, apologized to my wife and three non-abused kids. I can have no contact with the victims. Neither of them has had any counseling. They both suffer similar after-effects. Low self-esteem, misplaced anger, distrust of men, especially men in authority positions, distrust of family members, confusion about sex, intimacy and relationships, slow to mature mentally and emotionally, and probably a host of other effects that I am not aware of.

My hope is that one day they get the help they need. I am here to share my experiences and insights in hope that I can help someone to stop abusing, or recognize the potential to abuse.

Letter #2

I molested my daughter when she was seven years old.

The molestation took place for a period of thirty days.

I felt very powerful, in control. I also felt aroused, and I was also scared for what I was doing to her, afterward I felt remorseful, disappointed with myself, I felt sick by my actions. I also tried to seduced my stepdaughter who was fourteen at the time. I was arrested and was charged with sexual battery and soliciting sex from a minor. I spent forty eight days in the county jail. My case is still pending in the courts. I was given a family plan by department of children and families and though was introduced to the Family Learning Program. While in therapy I am learning a lot about my deviant behaviors and I hope to share this with anyone that can benefit from it. The effects of my behavior so far on my daughter, she is more fragile than she used to be, she seems to cry more readily. She is also afraid to sleep in the dark and is more attached to her mom than before the abuse. My step-daughter hates me with a passion. She is having a hard time in school, with her grandmother and her relationships, my wife believes that she is engaging in sex and although she hates older men in general, she hates her mom and her father as well. She is finally getting some therapy though. My wife is more independent, more open to communication, she has had to endure great pain because of my actions. I have put her thru a lot of pain in the last three years. My mother and the whole family has suffered a lot, everyone has lot of stress as a result of my deviant behavior. Even my son who is not a direct victim has a lot of issues of his own especially with anger. He had to be away from us for a whole year. He is less respectful towards me and his mother, I can tell that he feels a lot of shame.

I know I have let my family, my friends and society down by my action but in the last two and half years I have been working very hard at learning all the techniques to not offend ever again.

Letter #3: My Website Autobiography

Welcome. I'm attending Florida Learning Programs Sexual Offenders Program. I sexually abused my step-daughter between 1991 and 1993. The whole time I was doing this I was thinking that I was teaching her about sex, or I wasn't hurting her or maybe she was liking it. Never thinking I was taking away her innocence, her trust in me and her love. My step-daughter found the courage within herself to finally tell her mother after one year. My wife went to the police and had me arrested for sexual abuse. I was given a 10 yr. prison sentence and 10 years probation. The affect of the abuse on my step-daughter was I found the she suffered from low self-esteem, didn't trust men or men in authority, had a hard time relating with her mother. But through therapy she has made great improvement in her life and is now thriving as a young adult, The effects upon the rest of the family was astounding. My wife had to work 2 sometimes 3 jobs to keep the family in tact. My home was totally disrupted due to me sexually abusing my step-daughter. My kids were stripped of their family because of my wife working so much and me being in prison. I had received 14 months of therapy in prison as well as 2 yrs. at the Family Learning Program and have made great strides in learning about myself and why I did what I did. I like to add that I take full responsibility for me abusing my step-daughter. It was all my fault. I took away her innocence and damaged all the love and trust that she had for me. With therapy, my stepdaughter and I have made great strides to reunite as father and daughter again. Each day that we see each other we work on that love and trust that was broken by me.

Letter #4

Many years ago I abused two female relatives, who were around 10 and 12. More recently I abused two other female relatives who were 12 and 6. One of them notified Department of Children and Families of my offences. I was arrested the next day and I pled no contest to two counts of lewd and lascivious conduct with a minor under the age of 16, was sentenced to ten years probation, allowed to return to my familial home as per their wishes conveyed to the court, and adjudication was withheld. I accept responsibility for what I did and that I chose to do so knowing that it was wrong and illegal. In each episode, I felt a sense of affection toward the victim and an expectation of reciprocity. But during these episodes, there was also an emotional conflict at the guilt-ridden memories of my offenses twenty years earlier. Afterward I was consumed with guilt and confused that the experience was dissatisfying and unfulfilling.

My earlier victims have severed their relationship with my family and me especially. I have seen the eldest of my later victims become rebellious toward authority, primarily to her parents and her religion. She had become far less modest in her dress than before and became sexually active. I must attribute her actions to my betrayal of the trust she had in me and the standards I professed. After many months of support from her family (immediate and extended) and church, she returned to a significantly more moderate lifestyle with a happier and more positive attitude towards her life, and her relationship with her parents is becoming even better than before. The younger and last victim had been diagnosed with emotional disturbances prior to the abuse (possibly from prenatal injury), and so her reaction would be atypical. I am certain however, that her emotional disorders were exacerbated by my abuse.

Accepting responsibility for choices I made has been a central theme in my therapy from day one. However, merely stating that I accept responsibility for my behaviors had no validity until I gained a deep understanding for the motive behind those behaviors. Without knowing why an event occurred, one cannot identify the combination of circumstances that created the event. It is impossible to avoid what you cannot identify and so the likelihood of repeating an offensive behavior is not removed simply by promising never to repeat it. We choose our behaviors to attain some goal. When we discover that goal, we can analyze it and understand what components contribute to achieving that goal and what elements comprise satisfaction. Then behaviors appropriate for attaining that goal become more apparent, as do the impossibilities of arriving at the same result with inappropriate behaviors. Your motive does not change but your frames of reference, or perspectives governing those behaviors shifts toward reality. Two years into that process, I can now unequivocally state that I accept responsibility for my crimes. I chose to molest each of those young girls. I am responsible for those choices; no one made me commit those terrible acts upon these children. I accept that responsibility and also for the myriad of choices I made that influenced my choosing to molest those children. Understanding that as I do, I also know that I am responsible for choosing to make the personal changes I have made and will continue to make.

Nothing I write is intended to justify my offense. I do not seek to excuse or place blame for my actions; they were a result of choices freely made. Neither do I offer apology by means of this writing; I have previously addressed that issue with those persons I have injured. If by contributing to this web site and sharing what I have learned, I can influence another offender to seek help and thereby save any child from the debilitating effects of sexual abuse, then I am rewarded. If an understanding of the influences causal to an offender's behavior helps a victim of childhood sexual abuse in any way, then I am assuaged. If I contribute anything to a more positive outcome for treatment of sex offenders then I am delighted. My intent, however, is to establish a change to my person from which I may be assured that I will never again so injure any child. When I accomplish that, and I will, then I am satisfied.

Letter #5

I was convicted for making and distribution of child pornography in the mail. But it wasn't until I received therapy that I faced the reality of my deviancy. It wasn't until then that I admitted to molesting children.

My pedophilia deviancy was so strong that it had become an addiction. I would not nor could I admit to myself that I was hurting anyone. So I justified my actions by telling myself for all those years that I was only loving them because no one else would. Therefore, using the term "love" as the means to give myself permission to molest. "To make it okay!" "This is how to love someone." I could not let myself believe I was hurting them. What a lie that was! I was hurting them more than anyone could have imagined. And when I did feel some guilt, especially when I was molesting my youngest daughter, I would always tell myself that "I won't do it again". But that to was a lie too because I would do it again as soon as there was an opportunity to do so. I even told my victims that "I won't do it again" or "This is the last time" just so I could do it again one more time. Putting my victims into my never ending cycle of abusing them.

Finally releasing this was the hardest thing I have had to do until it came time to face the real abuse I had caused on my victims. Seeing the abuse for the pain it caused changed my life for ever. My victim's behaviors had change because of what I had done to them. One of my victims had even tried to commit suicide. The effects of my molesting within the family caused the parents to blame themselves in such a way that their mental state was in dismay.

Since then I have made it my goal to help my victims with what ever it took. Even if it meant to face each victim, face to face, so that I may apologize and to answer their questions as to why it happened. I had learned that I could not change the past but I could change what ever the future could hold. Facing my victims and answering their questions did change their outlook on life. I have seen the changes they have made which make me strive to keep helping them in whatever it may take to reverse the cycle.

I also realize how many others have been abused from my deviant behavior. Many family members were indirectly affected from my addiction to abusing children. There were many hardships on everyone and each member blamed themselves for letting it happen. just as it took many years to cause the damage I have done it will take many years for me to help them believe there was no way for them to know. That I kept everyone so blind from it all, and used their trust in order to gain the access I had to molest their children. My goal is to reassure them that I was to blame for everything.

In closing, I would like to say that if it were not for the therapy I have received (many years in jail with therapy, plus 7 years after I got out and continuing in therapy still) I would have been on an increasingly destructive path. The therapy has changed my life and the life of many others. It has been this therapy that has given me the tools and the knowledge to change the way things were. The feeling from all these changes have been very rewarding. I thank God for this opportunity which has given me a second chance to be a productive citizen in our society.

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