Family Solutions for Juvenile First Offenders

This article is a a review of the Family Solutions Program. A multiple family intervention program, the Family Solutions Program contains ten themes vital to its success:
1. Trust and willingness to help each other.
2. Searching for competencies and strengths within and between families and moving toward problem-resolution.
3. Targeting the needs and changes of parents as well as those of the youth.
4. Creating a forum for all ideas to be heard and respected.
5. Consistent flexibility in program topics within and across groups.
6. Promoting long and short term goals for change, both during and after the program.
7. Providing inspirational experiences to motivate the youth and/or parent to adopt new attitudes or behaviors.
8. Familiarizing families with resources available in the community.
9. Providing youth with opportunities to contribute to their community.
10. Identifying vulnerabilities of youth such as school failure or constant interpersonal conflict, and implementing topics and activities that address these difficulties, such as conflict-resolution and anger management.


Editor's Note: Don't miss our more recent issue, Preventing Juvenile Delinquency, printed in 2008.