Reaching High-Risk Families: Intensive Family Preservation in Human Services by James K. Whittaker

Author:James K. Whittaker [Whittaker, James K.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Work, Social Science
ISBN: 9780202360577
Google: ivOftAEACAAJ
Goodreads: 3642060
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 1990-01-15T13:09:53+00:00

Outcome Research

Outcome research on crisis intervention, conventional family systems treatments, and social learning-based family therapy complements the nascent research on the efficacy of home-based services (i.e., AuClaire and Schwartz, 1986). Crisis intervention evaluations are weakest and stand apart. Family systems interventions have not yet been directly compared to social learning interventions. Still, some points of comparison can be identified. Less can be said about crisis intervention efforts since, as previously discussed, crisis intervention has not been adequately conceptualized or operationalized for outcome research.

Crisis Intervention Services

The value of theories can be determined by whether the interventions they spawn produce results that are superior to other theories or no theory at all. A profile of research on outcomes of crisis interventions is difficult to draw, however, because almost any treatment can be defined as crisis intervention given that almost any untoward event that precedes the onset of treatment may be vilified as the crisis. “Crisis intervention, neither in practice nor from an evaluative stand point, has evolved in any coherent fashion from crisis theory or its attendant assumptions…. Virtually every system of psychotherapy or behavior change includes crisis intervention in its domain” (Auerbach, 1983; p. 19). All crisis intervention efforts do, at least, share a commitment to intervening at the earliest point after the crisis. The most thorough crisis intervention research efforts have been evaluations of Samaritan suicide centers. These are mixed: one early study indicated that these centers reduce the suicide rate (Bagley, 1968), but a subsequent and more sophisticated investigation (Jennings et al., 1978) found no difference. When research on crisis intervention efforts was summarized by Auerbach (1983), the conclusion reiterated Williams and Polak’s (1979) summation-no systematic research has tested the efficiency of crisis intervention as a technique. At present, there is no forceful theoretical or evaluative argument for drawing on crisis theory or crisis intervention constructs to boost the helpfulness of IFPS. Comparative program evaluations should consider whether the ability to respond immediately, the use of “beepers,” and the absence of waiting lists contribute a significant amount to program outcomes; alone, crisis theory is not a trustworthy guide for program design.

Systemic or Structural Family Therapy

In assessing the effectiveness of family therapy approaches, this chapter draws heavily on the work of Gurman, et al., (1986) who have made careers of encyclopedic and skillful reviews of this literature. They argue that “…the practice of family and marital therapy leads to positive outcomes. Family therapy no longer needs to justify its existence on empirical grounds…. Indeed, we believe that the progress achieved in the last few years offers the basis for even more confidence about the salience of systemic thinking and practice than did the research we reviewed in 1978” (p. 570). According to those well-known reviewers of the family therapy field, systemic, nonbehavioral family and marital therapies are considered to have some beneficial effect in about two-thirds of cases and to be better than no treatment or conventional treatments. In a study of work with youth called “delinquents” (but more like

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