Community Implementation of Functional Family Therapy

Successful FFT programs, whether home based, clinic based, or school based, include programs grounded in diversion, probation, alternatives to incarceration, and reentry from high-security, severely restrictive institutional settings.

FFT currently has 50 active certified service sites in 15 States. These sites serve thousands of adolescents and their families each year. The ability to replicate FFT with fidelity has been achieved through a specific training model and a sophisticated client assessment, tracking, and monitoring system (FFT–CCS) that provides for clinical assessment, outcome accountability, and supervision. In addition, the FFT Practice Research Network (FFT–PRN) allows clinical sites to develop and disseminate information on the FFT model. Clinicians who have successfully implemented FFT include trained professionals with master’s degrees and, on occasion, staff with bachelor’s degrees from fields such as public health nursing, social work, marriage and family therapy, clinical psychology, licensed mental health counseling, probation services, criminology, psychiatry, and recreation therapy.

Communities have implemented FFT with success because its training program is multisystemic, meaning that it focuses on the therapist, community, and clinical delivery system. At any given site (e.g., agency, intervention team, contracting intervention program), FFT’s four major goals are to:

• Replicate the program as it has been used in previous sites (to increase the probability that the site will have the same success), yet tailor the program to the unique needs of the community.

• Develop a self-sufficient site (i.e., one that will be able to provide FFT over time in a way that remains true to the therapy’s core principles).

• Develop competent therapists and supportive clinical and administrative structures.

• Initiate and use the FFT clinical system to promote adherence to the FFT model.

Implementation of FFT focuses, in particular, on developing therapist competence rather than simply teaching skills. A competent therapist is able to:

• Implement a treatment model’s core elements.

• Treat each family member with clinical and cultural sensitivity.

• Enhance the treatment’s effectiveness by making treatment decisions based on core principles of the model.
  
  
  

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  Functional Family Therapy	Juvenile Justice Bulletin • December 2000