Treading the Path of Anticipatory Bereavement: Working with Families with a Dying Member in an Acute Care Medical Setting

The aim of this paper is to consider issues related to working with families with a dying member in an acute medical setting, using the framework of the Bower Place family therapy approach. The literature on individual and family anticipatory bereavement processes is reviewed and the Bower Place methodology of family therapy is outlined. A case example is used to illustrate the application of the methodology to a family facing the death of one of its members. The author highlights the need for therapists to consider second order cybernetic issues when working in this context.     

A view from 1991: Crisis: Home-Based Family Therapy

Originally prepared for publication in 1991, but now appearing for the first time, this article discusses home-based family therapy in the context of families experiencing psychiatric crises. Strategies of engagement, interventions and safety issues related to this form of family therapy are outlined. The advantages of home-based family therapy in terms of direct observation and intervention and the minimisation of the need to transfer learning are discussed. Reflecting from the perspective of the present, the author notes with regret that most crisis teams today do little more than gatekeeping; a great opportunity for effective home-based treatment appears to have been lost.     

#FamiliesBelongTogether: Facts and Fictions of Race and Family in U.S. Immigration Policy

Family reunification is widely seen as a relatively stable feature of the contemporary U.S. immigration regime protected by the nation’s liberal democratic institutions and humanitarian values. Drawing on critical scholarship that situates immigration policies in racial nation‐building projects, this article explores the development of U.S. family‐based admission policies from 1965 to the early 2000s. I bring attention to the role of racial family logics in the changing character and meaning of these policies. Racial family logics reflect the emergent and contested ways in which families are both idealized and institutionally organized in relation to the state, the economy, and other social institutions to support racial projects. A normative conception of “the family” as a white, heterosexual, male wage earner, nuclear household unit informed the 1965 U.S. Immigration and Nationality Act and its emphasis on family‐based admissions. However, by the 1990s, the landscape of immigration, race, and family in the United States had shifted quite dramatically. The family‐based admissions system was now associated with immigrants from Asia and Latin America rather than Europe. The “browning” of the system was accompanied by its incorporation into racialized projects of state discipline, surveillance, and control over those deemed “undeserving” in relation to neoliberal values of self‐reliant and self‐regulating families.     

Do Benefits of U.S. Food Assistance Programs for Children Spillover to Older Children in the Same Household?

The Women, Infants and Children (WIC) program targets low-income individuals in nutritionally vulnerable groups in the U.S. The food benefits individuals receive could be shared with other family members or may free a portion of the family budget. National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey data are used to examine whether children who are age-ineligible for WIC (age 5–17), that live in WIC-participating families have healthier diets than similar children in nonparticipating families. Results show children in WIC-participating families score higher on the Healthy Eating Index than children in non participating families. This association is stronger for children in families with two or more WIC participants compared with children living with only one or no WIC participants.     

The third dimension in social casework: Mary E. Richmond's contribution to family treatment

This article traces the development of family group treatment as conceptualized by Mary E. Richmond (1861–1928). While the main course of social work was following the new individual psychology from Europe after World War I, Richmond was paving the path for a clinical approach that was not to be realized until 30 years later.This is a revised, abbreviated version of a presentation made by the author at a doctoral seminar on the casework roots of practice delivered in 1965 at the School of Social Work, University of Southern California.     

Basic Challenges to Prisoner Reentry

Crime, incarceration and prisoner reintegration are pressing issues facing the United States today. The U.S. prison population has increased from 330,000 in 1980 to over 2.2 million prisoners today. As the prison population grows at record rates so, in turn, does the reentry of prisoners into society. Currently, around 700,000 prisoners are released each year from custody and reenter society – nearly 2,000 inmates per day. The transition from prison to the outside world is often difficult for post-release prisoners, their families, their communities and the larger society. Many formally incarcerated individuals do not have the skills or support to succeed outside prison walls. Unfortunately, when post-release prisoners are not successfully reintegrated, they are returned to prison and begin the cycle of incarceration.
Practitioners and academics agree that the main components for successful reentry include proper housing, viable employment, and family and community support. However, while there is consensus regarding what post-release prisoners need for successful reentry there is debate as to which programs and policies work best. This paper examines the basic challenges to reentry and provides a brief summary of the problems with reentry program evaluation.     

Multiple Family Group Therapy in a Drug and Alcohol Rehabilitation Centre

In the last decade there has been increasing interest in working systemically with groups of families. Multiple family groups (MFGs) have been used in mental health settings with schizophrenia, eating disorders and drug and substance abuse. This article describes the MFG program used in Higher Ground Alcohol and Drug Rehabilitation Trust, a rehabilitation centre in Auckland, (New Zealand). Higher Ground provides an 18‐week residential therapeutic program for people with a severe substance abuse disorder. The MFG in Higher Ground focuses on developing better communication patterns and better boundaries between family members, fostering mutual support, and promoting self‐responsibility.     

Case Management with Families Receiving Public Assistance: Results from an Empirical Evaluation

ABSTRACT

This article describes the results from a family-based case management demonstration program which served families in North Carolina during the period of 1990 to 1993. The model for the program was based on the family investment initiative strategy developed by the George Washington University Center for Policy Studies. Entitled the Family Investment Initiative, the goal of the program was to assist families receiving AFDC to reach economic self-sufficiency. Results indicate that this family-based case management approach has promise for helping AFDC-dependent families achieve economic self-sufficiency. Implications of the results for social work case management practice with families are discussed.     

REVIEWS

Gustafson, J.P., & Cooper, L. W. The modern contest: A systemic guide to the pattern that connects individual psychotherapy, family therapy, group work, teaching, organizational life, and large-scale social problesms.
Henggeler, S.W.& Borduin, C.M. Family therapy and beyond: A multisystemic approach to treating the behavior problems of children and adolescents.
Elizur, J., & Minuchin, S. Institutionalizing madness: families, therapy and society.
George, K. The adoption option: A practical handbook for prospective adoptive parents.
Landgraf, J.R.Singling: A new way to live the single life.
McCarthy, B. & McCarthy E. Couple sexual awareness.
Marlin, E. Relationships in recovery: Healing strategies for couples and families.
Miller, S., Wackman, D., Nunnally, E., & Miller, P.(1988). Connecting instrucdtor manual.
Miller, S., Wackman, D., Nunnally, E., & Miller, P.(1988). Connecting skills workbook.
Miller, S., Wackman, D., Nunnally, E., & Miller, P.(1988). Connecting with self and others.     

Absent men: paid domestic work,sexual exploitation and male domination in the family in the USA

This article analyzes the sexual exploitation of paid domestic workers in the US through the lens of male domination in employing families. Departing from the dominant tendency in studies of paid domestic work to focus on relationships between female employers and workers, the article addresses the role of male domination and patriarchal family structures within employing families in the sexual exploitation of domestic workers by male employers. Using materialist feminist approaches, the article argues that domestic workers’ experiences should be seen as embedded in the patriarchal environment created by male household heads who appropriate the labor of other household members, including wives, children and paid domestic workers. The sexual exploitation of domestic workers is then analyzed as being a result of the appropriation of women’s entire personhood by men within the relationship of sexage outlined by Colette Guillaumin.     

Home for now: A mixed-methods evaluation of a short-term housing support program for homeless families

The use of short-term rental subsidy vouchers offers a new approach to addressing the housing needs of families facing homelessness. In Massachusetts, the Family Home pilot program placed homeless families in housing instead of shelter, providing two years of rental subsidy plus support services with the goal of enabling families to maintain market rate housing. This mixed-method case study complements staff and participant interview data with participant survey and administrative data to evaluate the implementation and short-term outcomes of Family Home in one region. Data point to improved family well-being in housing but also persistent barriers to achieving longer-term housing and economic stability. Of the families who had exited the program at the end of the study, one quarter were able to retain their housing at market rate, only 9% returned to shelter, and one in five moved in with families/friends. Lack of affordable housing in a high rental cost region and jobs that pay living wages were among the major reasons that families struggled to maintain housing. This research points to the need for integrating supportive services from the program's start, including targeted workforce development, to plan for the end of the short-term rental subsidy.     

To reclaim a legacy: Social rehabilitation

The article describes the first year of the Social Rehabilitation Program for children and their families at the Philadelphia Child Guidance Clinic. A parallel is drawn with the beginning of family therapy and the ecological approach under Salvador Minuchin in 1965. It traces the difficulty in maintaining outreach community work because of funding problems and productivity requirements of the funding agency, and ends with the return to the community approach under the new program. The program is described primarily through case examples.The therapists who worked on this project are Pat Goodman, Sara Thomas, Rick Nelson, Roosevelt Spruill and Muriel Shapp.     

The child abuse and divorce myth

When the authors of this article undertook a study into the way the Australian legal process managed child abuse allegations in custody and access disputes following partnership breakdown in de facto and legal marriages, they encountered what they came to think of as ‘the child abuse and divorce myth’. The myth centred around a belief that child abuse allegations made during or after partnership breakdown were weapons fashioned to gain advantage in the marital war. Therefore, they were not real; therefore, they should not be taken seriously. Despite little previous research, these views were strongly held by both families and professionals. The article examines the myth, believed to be an international phenomenon, and shows, in detail, how the study's findings do not support it. In fact, the findings from this unique study contradict the myth in its totality and in its specific aspects. Thus, it is argued that the myth should be abandoned and a new knowledge base for professional intervention that recognizes the reality of this problem be adopted instead. As a result of the study, a new specialized intervention program for children involved in residence and contact disputes where child abuse was alleged is being trialled in the Family Court of Australia. Hopefully, the introduction of further intervention programmes based on the reality of child abuse in these circumstances rather than on the myth will follow. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Perceived Needs for Support Program for Family With Child Sexual Abuse Victim in South Korea: Focus Group Interview With Therapists and Mothers

This study assessed perceived needs for psychological support program for family with victim of child sexual abuse in South Korea. We conducted two separate focus group interviews with five therapists who served child sexual abuse victims and families as well as four mothers of a child sexual abuse victim. Consensual qualitative research analysis revealed four domains: Emotional support for parents, psychoeducation, family therapy, and tailored and flexible service delivery. Core ideas of the four domains were identified. The results were consistent with the family support program contents developed in Western countries and suggested culture-specific contents and culturally sensitive service delivery. Clinical implications for developing family support program in South Korea were discussed.     

Internet-Initiated Sexual Assault Among U.S. Adolescents Reported in Newspapers, 1996–2007

This article provides an assessment over time of the incidence of newspaper-reported Internet-initiated sexual assaults among U.S. adolescents undergoing adjudication from 1996 to 2007. Of 812 newspaper reports of adjudicated Internet-initiated sexual assault, most (79.2%) victims were female, and the median age was 14 years. The incidence rate of these reports increased over the 12-year period for females but remained steady for males. The frequency of these assaults was much less than reported for other types of sexual assaults in this age group. These estimates hopefully will assist in a greater understanding of these assaults, aid in interventions to decrease their occurrence, and guide effective policymaking that will reduce all types of sexual assault among adolescents.     

Reducing child poverty by promoting child well-being: Identifying best practices in a time of great need

Child poverty in the United States persists despite a range of social services designed to reduce poverty rates and improve the economic self-sufficiency of families. The economic downturns resulting in job losses and the housing crisis have converged to create a new group of families who were managing to remain out of poverty prior to the recession but are now slipping into poverty, putting additional strain on services. In light of these pressing issues, this article synthesizes the literature examining child poverty to take a long-range view of the relationship between economic strain, system involvement, and impacts on children and the systems attempting to serve these children. The effectiveness of various policy and program efforts aimed at reducing child poverty rates and/or ameliorating the negative effects of living in poverty is reviewed. The article concludes by suggesting a major shift in focus from reducing child poverty as a singular goal to a comprehensive approach to promoting child and family well-being.     

Parent Effectiveness Training (P.E.T.): Criticisms and Caveats1

Noting that Parent Effectiveness Training (P.E.T.) has achieved a measure of uncritical acceptance among professionals and laypersons, the authors express reservations about the program. In particular, RE. T. is criticized for its emphasis on one-sided techniques in the parent-child relationship as well as its tendency to reduce complex problems to simplistic formulas. RE.T.'s central metaphor of parent-as-therapist is identified and found wanting. Finally, the authors pose a number of potential hazards of RE.T. for individuals and families, and observe that some of the issues raised here may have applicability beyond P.E.T. to the parent education movement in general     

Transforming child welfare: from explicit to implicit control of families

Through a historical review of child welfare laws and policies between 1896 and 1992 in Norway, this article investigates the state control of families. The central questions in this article relate to the transformations in the forms of state control of families. The research on which this article is based has relied on a genealogical approach. The sources are comprised of previous studies focusing on the historical development of child welfare in Norway. This article argues that state control, from having been explicit in the late nineteenth century, has today become increasingly implicit and hidden. Indeed, the value granted to children's rights and equality has made opposition to state interventions in families difficult. I relate the transformations in state control of families to the affirmation of the norms of ‘egalitarian individualism’. As Norway is amongst the first European countries to make child-centrism a hallmark of its social policies, these findings have implications for EU countries that may follow its path.     

BOOK REVIEWS

Book reviewed in this article:
Weeks, Gerald R. & L'Abate, Luciano. Paradoxical psychotherapy: Theory and practice with individuals, couples, and families.
Kempler, Walter. Experiential psychotherapy within families.
Kempler, Walter. Experiential psychotherapy within families.
Box, Sally, Copley, Beta, Magagna, Jeanne and Moustaki, Errica (Eds.). Psychotherapy with families: An analytic approach.
Capra, Fritjof. The turning point: Science, society and the rising culture.
Wolberg, Louis & Aronson, Marvin (Eds.). Group and family therapy, 1981.
Green, Robert J. & Framo, James L. (Eds.). Family therapy: Major contributions.
Wile, Daniel B., Couples therapy: A nontraditional approach.
Willi, Jürg. Couples in collusion.
Becvar, Raphael J. & Becvar, Dorothy Stroh. Systems theory and family therapy: A primer.
Pinney, E. G. & Slipp, S. Glossary of group and family therapy.
Brown, Kristi (Ed.). Family counseling: An annotated bibliography.
Glick, Ira D., Weber, David H., Rubinstein, David & Patten, John T. Family therapy and research: An annotated bibliography.
Olson, David H. & Markoff, Roxanne (Eds.).Inventory of marriage and family literature.