How SASSI can support ASSET

In general overview:
ASSET encourages the gathering of information from a range of sources and makes it clear that the importance of “establishing relationships with the young person is central to the assessment”. SASSI facilitates the dialogue and helps the practitioner to “get alongside” the young person, increasing willingness to engage and helping to avoid damaging confrontation.

Where ASSET provides a structure for recording and analysing information,
SASSI provides a means of gathering and evaluating evidence to populate it.

Where ASSET asks the practitioner to rate factors associated with a likelihood of further offending, SASSI profiles possible contributory attitudes and behavioural characteristics, measures them against population norms and provides a measure of their relative significance.

Core Profile Issues the SASSI can shed light on:
(2) Family and personal relationships, (5) lifestyle, (6) substance use, (7) physical health, (8) emotional & mental health, (9) perception of self and others, (10) thinking and behaviour, (11) attitudes to offending and substance use, (12) motivation to change, (summary) protective factors and indicators of vulnerability.

e.g. Core Profile 6 Substance Misuse:
The SASSI will indicate

• Whether the young person is likely to be ready for and open to the discussion, or whether they may be reluctant and defensive. SASSI training provides techniques for disarming defensive clients.
• Whether the young person’s family is likely to enable or encourage substance use.
• Whether the young person has a negative, neutral or mildly positive attitude to alcohol and drug-taking, or is much more positive in their attitude than the majority of their peers and is likely to defend their positive views in any discussion. SASSI training shows how to avoid entrenching counterproductive views and to find other ways of altering attitudes.
• Whether the young person has the insight to draw connections between their use of substances and the consequences which flow from it, or whether the peer culture in which they move effectively “normalises” it, so that they see consequences as trivial or inevitable.
• Whether offending is likely to be substance-driven, and whether the young person still retains an internal locus of control over their substance use. Loss of control over decisions about when to use, how much to use and when to stop can provide real evidence of relative risk of re-offending, and of risk of indulging in risky or self-harming behaviours.
• Protective factors which may mitigate against further problems, such as supportive and interested parental figures, constructive peer culture, appropriate self-esteem, good powers of self-analysis, resistance to risk-taking behaviours, patience, ability to empathise and take responsibility, ability to relate to and co-operate with others.

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