FAMILY PRESERVATION PAPER

Functional Family Therapy Model

Introduction

Family counseling is also called family therapy. It is a branch of psychotherapy which deals with families and couples in intimate relationships to develop and groom the relation. The intention of family counseling is to capture change in terms of the systems of communication among the family members. The relationships are recognized as the important factor in psychological health (Sharf, 2004)

The objective of this paper is to provide an brief about current family preservation practices and how it is used with families. It will also identify the populations that the program is currently focusing at and to give a overview of the data available (Sharf, 2004).

Discussion

Functional Family Therapy (FFT) is an, family-based program which acts as an intervention for acting-out youth. The core purpose of FFT is to improve communication between family members and giving them emotional support and at the mean time lessening the extreme negativity which these particular families are known for (Alexander, 2013). The other objectives of FFT include helping members of the family to adopt constructive resolution of their problems, and inculcate positive change of behavior and parenting approaches. Even though formerly intended to taking care of middle class families along with felonious and anti-social teenagers, the initiative has lately involves underprivileged, multi-Racial, multi-ethnic groups, with quite grave family issues such as teenage drug abuse, conduct disorder, and violence (Alexander, 2013).

This particular program is carry forward by psychologists who deals with family issues

in a clinical environment, which has become a standard for most family rehabilitation initiatives; latest initiatives with families who have multiple problems include efficient treatment by the in-home Experts. This specific model is consists of four stages: [1]Introduction/ stage; [2] a inspiration (treatment) stage , [3] a transformation of behavior stage; and [4] a more multisystem focused, Generalization stage (Alexander, 2013).Each individual stage involves decisive evaluation, definite methods of treatment, and psychotherapist objectives and qualities. (Alexander, 2013).

In the recent past the model envisioned in the form of FFT has been assessed many times starting from 1971. Family therapists have demonstrated the effectiveness of this model with families from diverse cultural backgrounds, and its outcome affirmed at additional performance sites (Alexander, 2013). FFT has shown an important decline in recidivism if one compares it to alternative practices of treatments and. (Alexander, 2013).

In addition to the results of ongoing assessments, FFT has given more attention to in-house therapist character and ...