Utilizing family strengths and resilience: Integrative Family and Systems Treatment (I-FAST) with children and adolescents with severe emotional and behavioral problems (original) (raw)
Related papers
Changes in family functioning and child behavior following intensive in-home therapy
Children and Youth …, 2007
Mechanisms by which intensive in-home therapy results in positive outcomes are little explored. This study tests the efficacy of standardized intake assessments to predict educational, correctional and placement outcomes for troubled youth after an intervention derived from MST (Intercept). Demographics, prior risk, and assessments of family functioning (FAM-Gen III), family structure (FACES-III) and child behavior (CBCL) were completed for 862 youth at intake who received intensive in-home therapy. Oneyear post-discharge outcomes including living situation, out-of-home placement, trouble with the law, and educational progress are described. Cox-Snell pseudo-R 2 is used to assess the contribution of the independent variables. Results show that risk and demographic factors explain as much or more variation in outcomes than the three assessment measures. More maltreatment types, and past partial hospitalization, residential treatment, or inpatient treatment predict less likelihood of living with family, and greater likelihood of out-of-home placement during the follow-up period. Age is a predictor of experiencing trouble with the law, with the probability of experiencing such trouble increasing by 1% for each one month increase in age at intake. These findings suggest that psychometric measures administered at intake contribute only moderate amounts to the explanatory value of demographics and risk factors. Policy and practice implications are forwarded.
This paper describes the Home-Based Crisis Intervention (HBCI) program in New York and the characteristics and outcomes of the families involved in a study that investigated the effectiveness of the program. The HBCI program provides short-term intensive in-home services to families with children who are at-risk of out-of-home placements. The intervention focuses on family strengths and needs using a multifaceted approach including skills building, counseling, and the provision of concrete services. The program effectiveness study included 221 children (ages 5-17) experiencing a psychiatric crisis that required immediate intensive intervention, hospitalization, or placement in another restrictive setting. Results indicate 63 percent of the families were Hispanic and 26 percent were African American. Eighty percent of the families had annual incomes of less than $20,000. Only 20 percent of the primary caretakers were employed. Seventy-two percent of the caretakers were single parents...
A moderate common factors approach is proposed as a synthesis or middle path to integrate common and specific factors in evidence-based approaches to high-risk youth and families. The debate in family therapy between common and specific factors camps is reviewed and followed by suggestions from the literature for synthesis and creative flexibility in manual development. A preliminary integrative model termed Integrative Family and Systems Treatment is offered as one option in developing and testing a moderate common factors approach. Such a model might then be studied in eventual clinical trials with other well-developed evidence-based protocols to further address the common versus specific factor debate. Implications for further research and practice are offered.
A Pilot Evaluation of the Rapid Response Program: A Home Based Family Therapy
Community Mental Health Journal, 2018
A pilot evaluation study of the implementation of the Rapid Response Program, a program utilizing the ecosystemic structural family therapy model, in a rural area of Pennsylvania was conducted. This approach was implemented in children's mental health to supplant a costly model of care that had not proven to break the cycle of dependency for children with severe behavioral problems and their families. Initial results show that the Rapid Response Program appears to improve problematic family patterns and children's behavioral problems. The study results are limited by small sample size; however, the outcomes suggest that the program warrants further study using a more rigorous research design with a larger sample.
Objectives: This study examined the treatment outcomes of integrated families and systems treatment (I-FAST), a moderated common factors approach, in reference to multisystemic therapy (MST), an established specific factor approach, for treating atrisk children and adolescents and their families in an intensive community-based setting. Method: This study used a nonrandomized noninferiority trial design to compare the outcomes of 79 families who received I-FAST, the test intervention, to 47 families who have received MST, the reference intervention. Results: I-FAST was noninferior to MST in reducing problem severity and improving functioning based on youth, parents, and workers' assessments. Conclusions: While the nonrandomized design of this study precludes any definitive conclusions, implications of the study were discussed with respect to the debate regarding common factors and specific factor approaches to family treatment and implementation of evidence-based treatments.
Intensive home and community interventions
Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Clinics of North America, 2004
In the mid-1980s, Stroul and Friedman [1] articulated a set of guiding principles for a system of care for children's mental health. These principles built on ongoing work that incorporated an ecologic framework [2-4] to emphasize the need for a continuum and a system of care. These principles were disseminated throughout the United States via the Child and Adolescent Service System Program , so that by the mid-1990s, system of care demonstration projects and infrastructure development were spread throughout the nation .
American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 1993
A short-term treatment program designed as an alternative to psychiatric hospitalization for children and adolescents is described. The program utilizes a multidisciplinary professional team and specially trained individuals (mentors) who work with the child and the child's biological family in the context of a mentor's home. Admission, discharge, and follow-up data on a group of patients are reported.
This study examined the efficacy of the Integrative Family and Systems Treatment (I-FAST) training model that seeks to support development of model expertise within the agency in the context of facilitating the sustainability of evidence-based family treatment within community mental health settings. A quasi-experimental design was used to examine treatment outcomes of I-FAST among agencies that received ongoing Consultation and agencies that received No Consultation upon completion of I-FAST training. v2 analyses and independent samples t test analyses showed that there were no significant differences between the two groups on clients who had achieved reliable change on Problem Severity and Functioning based on parents’ assessments. Significance of this study is discussed in the context of the role of evidence based family therapy (EBFT) training in facilitating its sustainability in community mental health settings.