Module 4: Overview

MODULE 4: The Basics for Engaging Families

Overview:

• To ensure that each youth and their family receives the individualized and culturally relevant treatment and supports they need that will result in successful reunification post residential discharge, the work of residential interventions has moved beyond the walls of the residential program to supporting families at home and in their communities throughout the residential intervention.
• Clinical and support services take place in the home and in the program. In-home services ideally take place as often as necessary⎯at minimum, several times a week, based on the family’s needs and goals⎯beginning prior to admission. Some programs have moved to daily support of families in their homes and communities during the early parts of the residential intervention and again when the aftercare component of the residential intervention begins.
• Organizations that build a mission around successful family engagement and permanency can facilitate effective work with families in their homes and communities by hiring staff, including Family/Parent Partners, who reflect the ethnicities of and speak the languages of the families served and are skilled at family engagement. It is critical that staff of all disciplines share in the commitment to providing support within homes and communities. This ensures that staff have an increased understanding of each family member’s individual strengths and needs so they can offer skill building that will be effective for the family. This also promotes a partnership between the family and the staff in identifying, putting in place and/or strengthening a full range of community services and supports that will lead to long-term successful reunification.
• Programs work to develop a range of promising and/or best practices (that are culturally relevant for the families they serve) for successfully engaging and working with families in their homes and communities. Some programs adopt a specific promising and/or best practice, or an evidence-based model (e.g., multi-systemic therapy, systemic family therapy; motivational interviewing, functional family therapy) that has been successfully used for  the different ethnicities of the families they serve. Other programs study the literature and learn from other successful programs, developing a range of culturally appropriate practices, staff skills, and supports that meet the needs of the individual families they serve.