Structured Assessment of Violence Risk for Youth (SAVRY)

Borum, Bartel, & Forth - 2006

The Structured Assessment of Violence Risk for Youth (SAVRY) is a risk assessment instrument for identifying youth at risk for committing violence and the dynamic risk factors associated with their violence. The SAVRY uses a structured a professional judgment approach and considerable research evidence supporting its ability to predict both violent and non-violent recidivism, as well as institutional aggression. Our SAVRY Training covers adolescent development and offending trajectories, known dynamic and static risk factors, the risk-need-responsivity framework, how to conduct the assessment (including interviewing), practice case scoring, and interpretation of the SAVRY for case planning. Our training is followed by helping all attendees to achieve proficiency by completing practice case vignettes on their own, proceeded by feedback on their scoring and then another practice case until they are scoring within a standard error of measurement on most scales. NYSAP provides SAVRY certification to all attendees who achieve an acceptable level of proficiency and nominates potential master trainers based on their performance.

Based on a fundamental understanding of best practices around implementation, along with solid knowledge of the research on assessments; NYSAP offers additional training opportunities that support SAVRY implementation. These include policy and service matrix development, supervisor training, case planning, stakeholder engagement, and effective quality assurance strategies to increase sustainability around the use of the SAVRY.