Research Committee

The Research Committee promotes statewide research in the field of sexual offending. Each year CCOSO awards a $2000 grant to help support the effort of a researcher who is a member in good standing of CCOSO. The Research Committee oversees the grant, reviews proposals, and recommends a recipient to the Board.

 

Call for Proposals for 2010 Research Grant:

 

Proposals will be accepted electronically until 11:59 p.m. on December 31, 2009. Review of proposals will take place in January and February, and the recipient will be officially named by the CCOSO Board at their March 2010 meeting. The Chair of the Research Committee will notify the recipient by April 1, 2010. Criteria for the proposal include:

 

1.      Applicants must be active CCOSO members in good standing.

2.      The proposed research will address an important aspect of sexual offending.

3.      Preference will be given to scientific research that is data driven rather than theoretical or conceptual papers.

4.      The proposal must include: a problem statement, purpose and significance of the study, hypotheses or research questions, and methodology.

5.      The Research Committee review all proposals, select the proposal they believe has the most merit, and recommend their choice to the Board for ratification. The chair of the Research Committee notifies the recipient. 

6.      The recipient will provide a written summary of his or her research findings to the Board within one month of completing the project. In addition, the recipient will present his or her findings at the next annual CCOSO Conference and submit a brief synopsis to the Perspectives Newsletter.

If you have questions about the 2010 Research Grant, or would like to submit a proposal, please contact the chair of the Research Committee, Lucinda A. Rasmussen, Ph.D., LCSW, at 619.594-6459 or at lucindarasmussen@cox.net.

2009 Recipient of CCOSO Research Grant

The CCOSO Board and the Research Committee are pleased to announce that the 2009 CCOSO Research Grant has been awarded to L.C. Miccio-Fonseca, Ph.D., Clinical Psychologist and Director of Clinic for the Sexualities in San Diego. The grant will help support the cross-validation research for a risk assessment tool constructed by Dr. Miccio-Fonseca, MEGA^♪ (Multiplex Empirically Guided Inventory of Ecological Aggregates for Assessing Sexually Abusive Adolescents and Children (Ages 19 and Under) (Miccio-Fonseca, 2006).

 

MEGA^♪ was recently validated on a U.S./Canadian sample of 1184 youth (males and females of all ages, including youth who are low intellectual functioning) and is currently being cross-validated on a new sample from outpatient, inpatient, day treatment, residential, and correctional settings. The tool provides a multidimensional assessment of risk through seven ecological aggregates (domains) and four risk scales.

 

Dr. Miccio-Fonseca’s research in constructing, validating, and cross-validating MEGA^♪ is consistent with the new standard in the field for evidence-based practice. MEGA^♪ assesses dynamic risk factors and provides an empirical means of following youth over time and evaluating their progress, as related to increased or decreased risk. The CCOSO Board is pleased to support this research because ultimately, more accurate risk assessments make our communities safer.

 

The Board has requested that Dr. Miccio-Fonseca present the preliminary findings of the MEGA^♪ cross-validation research at next year’s CCOSO Conference in May 2010, as well as report her findings in the Newsletter. 

First Research Grant Award

Mr. Gerry Blasingame, MA, was awarded CCOSO’s first research grant at the Atrium Hotel in Irvine, California, the site of the Fourth Annual Training Conference, in May of 2001.

The title of Mr. Blasingame’s proposal is: “Assessment of developmentally disabled sexual offenders and/or those with sexual misconduct problems using the Abel Assessment for sexual interest‘.” The study will explore usefulness of the Abel system for evaluating persons with developmental disabilities who have sexual behavior problems.

Although non-experimental, Mr. Blasingame’s proposal was selected because this subject has been largely neglected in the literature. The $1000.00 grant will be awarded upon the completion of the study