Strong school and family ties have long shown success in influencing positive child development and lasting academic success. While a multitude of programs exist to help facilitate the school-family connection, one program in particular, Families and Schools Together, or FAST, stands out as an effective prevention program that is suitable for a…

Several components must be reviewed when a clinician considers using an assessment instrument. Such components include: (1) the instrument's relevance to the presenting problem; (2) the normative data; (3) traditional psychometric principles; (4) social validity; and (5) usefulness to interventions. This study reviewed seven assessment instruments…

Describes the Family Environment Scale (FES). Discussion of family member's real and ideal family environment identifies areas of agreement and disagreement about actual and desired aspects of family functioning. This procedure can focus each therapy session on specific interpersonal issues and encourage family members to take an active part.…

Research and clinical support for the connections between alcohol abuse and the family milieu have generated increased interest in family treatment approaches to alcoholism. In assessing the "alcoholic family," the clinician must consider numerous aspects of family interaction which have been linked to abuse and to treatment outcomes.…

Describes a preventive intervention that was randomly offered to a group of (n=67) non- to mildly distressed couples who participated in a larger study on relationships. At nine-month follow-up, couples in which one partner experienced parental divorce demonstrated increased problem intensity, decreased problem-solving ability, and rational…