There is a newer edition of this title. This eagerly awaited volume draws upon the authors' many years of experience in the inner city to provide vital guidance to therapists working with poor families. While standard counseling models are often limited to individual persons and their problems, this book emphasizes the importance of understanding individual needs within a larger family framework, and considering the family itself within broader organizational and community contexts. Weaving in numerous case histories and examples of practical interventions, the authors demonstrate how their inventive approach can be used to draw out clients' strengths and to make the most of limited social service resources. Readers will learn new techniques to gather information, reframe family assumptions, handle conflict, and explore alternative patterns of interaction. In addition, the authors show therapists how to increase the level of collaboration between poor families and the multiple agencies that provide assistance with foster care, substance abuse counseling, perinatal programs, residential and psychiatric centers for children, and home-based services. Table of Contents
I. Fundamentals of Thought and Practice
1. Prologue: Angie, Her Family, and the Community of Helpers
2. The Framework: A Systems Orientation and a Family-Centered Approach
3. Working in the System: Family-Supportive Skills
4. Changing the System: Family-Supportive Procedures
II. Interventions in Different Settings
5. Foster Care: An Ecological Model
6. Substance Abuse and Pregnancy: A Family-Oriented Perinatal Program
7. Institutionalizing Children I: Residential Centers
8. Institutionalizing Children II: Psychiatric Wards
9. Home-Based Services
10. Epilogue Patricia Minuchin, PhD, is Co-director of Family Studies, Inc., in Boston, Massachusetts, and Professor Emeritus at Temple University. A development psychologist, she has written primarily about families in relation to individual development and on the impact of larger systems on the functioning of poor families and children.
Jorge Colapinto, Lic., is a family therapist and consultant for social service agencies. He is a former member of the staff of Family Studies, Inc., and currently directs the Foster Care Project, Ackerman Institute for the Family, New York, New York.
Salvador Minuchin, MD, Director of Family Studies, Inc., was formerly Director of the Philadelphia Child Guidance Clinic. He has worked extensively with poor families and social agencies and has published a number of classic books on family therapy. "This masterfully written book presents a clear and practical approach to working with underprivileged families. The authors guide practitioners through the complexities of contemporary human service structures, describing effective macrosystemic examples of interventions on behalf of families in treatment. The book is also a useful text that could help social service students, workers, and supervisors develop and implement family-centered and family-friendly programs."
-Ramon A. Rojano MD, MPH, Hartford Human Services Director, Creator of the Community Family Therapy Approach, Faculty Marriage and Family Therapy Program, Central CT State University "This beautifully written book will be a valued text for introductory and advanced social work courses. Drawing upon both systemic and ecological models, the book integrates individual, family, and larger systems. Perhaps most important, it addresses the diverse contexts in which social work practice actually occurs."
-Joan Berzoff, MSW, EdD, Smith College School of Social Work "This book reminds us that family networks are remarkably resilient and durable, and that even under great stress, these networks may be sources of solutions, help and healing. If there is one theme woven throughout the book, it is about the power and potential of connections: between, among and within familiel; between the helper and the helped; between individuals, networks and systems; and among systems. The authors illuminate a promising pathway toward respectful and affirming help for families struggling to do well by and for their kids in tough circumstances."
-Ralph Smith, Vice President, Annie E. Casey Foundation, Baltimore, Maryland from the publisher's website |
