Description
Family Centered Treatment (FCT) is designed for families that have experienced multiple primary traumas including victims with exposure to violence, neglect, emotional, physical and sexual abuse, abandonment, losses, complex trauma and domestic violence. Families experiencing adoption disruption and those with secondary trauma from medical complexities are also included. FCT is a home-based intervention that focuses on the family unit as a whole, instead of just the individual.
Treatment includes four phases:
(1) Joining and Assessment Phase: Practitioners respond to referrals quickly to engage with family when they are in crisis and more likely to be motivated to examine/change behaviors. During this time, the family identifies needed additions, changes or improvements in family functioning skills. They also explore family resiliency, family life cycle and generational patters.
(2) The Restructuring Phase: Practitioners and family establish new patterns of daily living and functioning in accordance with goals set during the Joining and Assessment Phase.
(3) The Valuing Change Phase: Practitioners help family examine the value in their changed behaviors beyond crisis situations. This is a critical component of FCT.
(4) The Generalization Phase: Family evaluates their changes, plans for future, and closes out treatment with practitioner.
There are no set timeframes for each phase, instead movement throughout the phases is indicated by family progress and need. Usually, there is a minimum of 2 multiple-hour sessions per week for an average of 6 months. On-call support is available to families 24 hours a day every day of the year.
FCT can be delivered in participant family home, local community center, school, workplace, etc. FCT has materials available in English and Spanish.
Enable family stability via preservation of or development of a family placement; Enable the necessary changes in the critical areas of family functioning that are the underlying causes for the risk of family dissolution; Bring a reduction in hurtful and harmful behaviors affecting family functioning; Develop an emotional and functioning balance in the family so that the family system can cope effectively with any individual member’s intrinsic or unresolvable challenges; Enable changes in referred client behavior to include family system involvement so that changes are not dependent upon the therapist; Enable discovery and effective use of the intrinsic strengths necessary for sustaining the changes made and enabling stability.
