Reaching Out in Family Therapy: Home-Based, School, and Community Interventions. - Review - book review

Adolescence, Spring, 2000

BOYD-FRANKLIN, Nancy, & BRY, Brenna Hafer. Reaching Out in Family Therapy: Home-Based, School, and Community Interventions. New York: The Guilford Press, 2000. 244pp. $30.00 (h).

Reaching out to families in the everyday settings in which they live can be a powerful mode of therapeutic intervention, particularly for families who face complex, multiple problems. This volume presents a valuable framework for conducting family therapy sessions in the home, school, and community. Drawing upon years of front-line work in family therapy practice, training, and supervision, Boyd-Franklin and Bry illuminate vital concepts and skills for helping families deal effectively with a variety of life challenges, including the effects of racism and other societal stressors. Illustrated with extensive clinical case material, the volume promotes a strengths perspective that is attuned to the complex realities of family life today. Grounded in structural and behavioral family therapy, the book elaborates a comprehensive multisystems approach. Throughout, emphasis is placed on the need for active intervention in the various systems that affect clients' lives. The authors demonstrate how outreach can be par ticularly useful when working with poor and ethnic minority families, whose support networks may include extended family, school personnel, and members of the "church family." Practitioners learn how to utilize out-of-office sessions to meet the people who are influential in clients' lives; observe the life realities of children, adolescents, and parents; and identify resources that can be mobilized to produce change. Detailed strategies are presented to help families navigate the overlapping demands of multiple agencies and institutions and to manage and prevent such diverse problems as substance abuse, school drop out, and child abuse. Also addressed are ways that effective supervision and training can empower clinicians and reduce burnout.