ABSTRACT
To love another you have to undertake some fragment of their destiny. —Quentin Crisp (1908-1999)
The Efficacy of Family Intervention
Family intervention programs addressing youth problems have received increasing attention. The multiple family group approach has more utility than the helping professions often acknowledge. There are multiple family group models to ameliorate psychopathology and alcoholism (Steinglass, 1995, 1987; Lawson & Lawson, 1996), family-based social services to stabilize families who are abusive or impoverished (Nelson, 1990), and psychoeducation groups for schizophrenic patients and their families (McFarlane, Link, Dushay, Marchal, & Crilly, 1995; McFarlane, 2002), showing four-year followup results using multiple family group intervention in positive parenting programs integrated into primary care services (Sanders, 1999), and structured family intervention groups to address early-onset school-related problems and risks of delinquency (Kumpfer & Tait, 2000; McDonald & Frey, 1999). They all provide support for the utilization of a family-community perspective in delinquency intervention. Snyder and Huntley (1990) propose that early intervention is the most effective with delinquents, and that the family should be a focus of prevention and clinical interventions, with social policy and programs aiming to support the family and its optimal functioning.
