lucinda rasmussen, PhD, lcsw

​Lucinda Rasmussen, PhD, LCSW, is an Associate Professor at the School of Social Work at San Diego State University, where she has taught social work practice classes for the past 18 years. She has over 30 years of clinical and research experience in the field of child sexual abuse, with specific expertise in intervening with young people who problematic and/or sexually abusive behaviors. Dr. Rasmussen's research focuses on risk assessment of sexually abusive youth and effects of trauma, including sexual abuse and domestic violence. She developed the Trauma Outcome Process Assessment (TOPA) model, a practice model for assessing and treating traumatized children, youth and adults and has published several peer reviewed articles on the model in the Journal of Child Sexual Abuse, Journal of Child and Adolescent Trauma, and Israeli Journal of Psychiatry. She has co-authored with L.C. Miccio-Fonseca, Ph.D., author of the MEGA♪, a risk assessment tool for sexually abusive youth, peer reviewed articles on applying the MEGA♪ to specific populations of sexually abusive youth: youth with low intellectual functioning and very high risk, dangerous youth (i.e., sexually violent and sexually violent predatory youth. Dr Rasmussen is Senior Research Consultant on the MEGA♪ International Project and has assisted in MEGA♪ specialized training in London, Liverpool, and Manchester, England, Glasgow, Scotland, and Dublin, Ireland. She completed the first longitudinal predictive validity and treatment outcome study (6 years) the two most contemporary risk assessment tools for sexually abusive youth MEGA♪ and the JSORRAT-II.