Athens, Ga. – During the past decade more than 1,200 families have participated in the “Family Solutions” program. A new book written by the developer of the program argues for the importance of including family in providing services to youth at risk.
“We have too much research documenting the family influences that contribute to child well-being to ignore families in child services at every step of the way,” said the author, William H. Quinn, a professor of child and family development in the University of Georgia’s College of Family and Consumer Sciences. “This book provides a map for professionals who want to implement a different approach from those traditionally used with children with a variety of behavior problems.”
Titled Family Solutions for Youth at Risk: Applications to Juvenile Delinquency, Truancy, and Behavior Problems, the nearly 300-page book focuses on the importance of bringing families into treatment programs for children with serious behavior problems. Traditionally such children have either faced probation through the court system or treatments that often did not include parents and other family members.
The book provides data documenting the program’s effectiveness, particularly in curbing further delinquency and strengthening families. In addition, it tells the stories of six families who completed the program.
“In ‘Family Solutions,’ parents attend throughout and provide a resource for other parents as well as for all of the children,” Quinn explained. “It enhances parenting skills by bringing parents together in a group along with their children where they can struggle with the challenges families encounter, laugh, build positive communication and provide encouragement to each other.
“This family group approach is underemphasized in our profession, but [the program] has demonstrated that when used properly it builds group trust and cohesion and leads to change for the children and their families,” he continued. “Families find support at a time when they often feel isolated, discouraged and inadequate.”
The program has been used in 12 counties in Georgia as well as in a variety of other states. Evaluation has shown that in counties where there is no “Family Solutions” program that youth reoffended at a rate nine times greater than what is found in counties with “Family Solutions.” In many places, “Family Solutions” programs have received growing financial support as juvenile justice systems and the courts programs that originally were grant-funded are now paid for with funding from county governments or school districts.
On the surface, “Family Solutions” seems rather simple. Children who have engaged in a variety of misbehavior are referred to the program along with their parents.
“We have an attitude of the more the merrier when it comes to family members attending,” Quinn said. “We encourage siblings, noncustodial parents and grandparents all to attend because they all can play a role in helping that young person.”
A cluster of family members also can provide more resources in terms of time and guidance to the youth, he added.
“In one case, the adult brother of a participant attended because he happened to be visiting in town that night,” Quinn related. “He told the ‘Family Solutions’ facilitator that he, too, had gotten into trouble as a youth and been required to see a probation office once a week. He said, ‘Nothing ever changed. I wish there was a program like this for me when I messed up.Ҕ
The families meet for 10 weeks with a social worker, school counselor or therapist trained in how to facilitate the “Family Solutions” program. Through the use of a variety of activities and the guidance of the leader, the families work to change chronic family conflict patterns, perceptions of hopelessness in both the children and their parents, a sense of failure and futility, and to adjust to family transitions that have resulted in problems in family relationships and maladjustments.
“When families come to their first session of [the program], they’re not always happy to be there,” Quinn said. “But by the end of those 10 sessions, most don’t want to stop coming.”
Quinn said he hopes the book will generate policy changes and programmatic decisions among a variety of agencies that deal with children who have committed crimes, are truant or engage in other misbehavior.
“Not only is ‘Family Solutions’ effective, it’s cost effective, as well,” he said. “The number of problems facing children is not shrinking and we can’t afford to send all of them to individual counselors. What ‘Family Solutions’ does is build a community of support for families to learn parenting and relationship skills, strategies for school success and appropriate peer choices.