The Association for the Treatment of Sex Offenders annual conference at the huge and plush Hilton Anatole in uptown Dallas is a strange beast. It lasts over four days, has more than 124 sessions, 63 poster sessions,1300 delegates and 20 stands. There are therapists, commercial and public providers, ATSA members, a handful of attorneys, a gang from NOTA (UK equivalent of ATSA) and me.

I am here to learn about the treatment of sex offenders to inform our plans to establish a programme for professionals who transgress sexual boundaries with their patients, clients, students or parishioners. A session on ethics yesterday quickly came to a discussion of boundary violations. Session leader Becky Palmer, of Alternative Behaviour Treatment Centers, said that professionals find it hard to discuss ethical dilemmas with colleagues, and believes that ethics is of necessity an area that requires discussion. When issues are not discussed and remain private they are more likely to come before ethics committees, and are of course not private anymore. She also said that “Sexual relationships [between practitioners and clients] are fairly common”.  There had been a rash of female staff coming in to the residential facility which she is associated with who had ended up having sex with clients. One, a licensed social worker who they sacked, stayed in touch with some of the young men, 17, 18 years old, giving them cell phones and meeting them over the state border.

A provider in the audience said "We dealt with it at our facility.  A teacher at high school was having sex with students. For us it’s more about women crossing that boundary – that has gone up[increased]."

During a discussion on dual relationships one delegate said that as an adult he had met his former head teacher, whom he still called ‘Mr’, the teacher called him by his first name and he felt just as vulnerable as he did when he was young. He said that in his view the power relationships stay with us for a very long time and that the proscription on sexual contact should be for life.

It was a bit depressing that the reasons people gave for being in the session were 'because we have to' - as it's a requirement for their CPD.