Although children and adolescents are generally more accessible through schools or community groups and are typically easier to work with in delinquency prevention activities than are entire families, it is important to begin focusing on the needs of the family as a whole. Garnering a commitment from parents who may face numerous obstacles to participation can be challenging, but it is worth the investment. Transportation and childcare needs and time demands are among the constraints that programs must address to promote successful parent participation. While efforts focusing on youth should continue, mounting evidence demonstrates that strengthening the entire family often has a more enduring impact on the child.

Family Protective and Risk Factors

The likelihood that a youth will develop delinquency problems increases as the number of risk factors grows in relation to the number of protective factors. The goal of family-based prevention programs should be to decrease risk factors and to increase protective factors. According to Bry (1996) and other researchers, the principal family protective factors are supportive parent-child relationships, positive discipline methods, close monitoring and supervision, parental advocacy for their children, and parental pursuit of needed information and support. A longitudinal study of delinquency, funded by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) (Huizinga, Loeber, and Thornberry, 1995), found that parental supervision, attachment to parents, and consistency of discipline are the most important protective factors in promoting resilience to delinquency in high-risk youth.

Family risk factors include the following (Kumpfer and Alvarado, 1995):

• Poor socialization practices.
• Modeling of antisocial values and behaviors.
• Poor supervision of the child, including failure to monitor the child's activities.
• Poor discipline skills.
• Poor quality of parent-child relationships.
• Excessive family conflict and aggressive behavior in youth.
• Family chaos and stress.
• Poor parental mental health.
• Family isolation.
• Poverty and community violence.
• Differential acculturation and acculturation stress.
• Sibling and peer drug use.

Strengthening America's Families Initiative

To provide parents with the critical skills required to enhance family resilience and decrease risk factors, OJJDP launched its Strengthening America's Families Initiative in the mid-1980's. The initiative's goals are to identify best practices that can meet the needs of diverse communities and disseminate these family-focused approaches to practitioners. With OJJDP support, the University of Utah developed a methodology for program identification and implemented a dissemination model, which included plans for developing a Web site, distributing printed material, showcasing family-based programs at national conferences, coordinating 2- to 3-day program-specific training workshops, and providing technical assistance. Minigrants for family-based program implementation were also funded.

In 1999, OJJDP joined with the Center for Substance Abuse Prevention (CSAP) and the University of Utah to continue and expand the initiative. OJJDP, CSAP, and the University of Utah collaboratively updated the methodology for best practices identification, sponsored 2 national conferences in 2000, and offered 16 program-specific training workshops across the country. In addition, CSAP awarded 2-year funding to 95 agencies to implement the best practice models and to gather data on the effectiveness of the programs. Using these data, researchers will determine whether the programs, once disseminated and adapted to meet community needs, are effective in reducing delinquency, violence, and related problems such as substance abuse.

OJJDP and CSAP jointly conducted the 1999 search for best practices and found a number of effective family-focused prevention strategies that target a variety of family needs and help numerous family types (see table 1). The 35 programs identified as best practices vary from structured programs with standardized written curriculums to open-ended support groups. Some programs work exclusively with parents while others work with the entire family and encourage extended family participation. A number of programs incorporate strategies designed specifically for biological families, foster families, single-parent families, teen parents, ethnic families, families with an incarcerated parent, families in which both parents work outside the home, and rural and inner-city families. The programs work with families of children of a variety of ages, from the prenatal stage through high school. The following descriptions illustrate the broad spectrum of programs that were selected as best practices:¹

• The Incredible Years: Parents, Teachers, and Children Training Series. The parent training curriculum of this series, designed for parents of children ages 3 to 12, focuses on strengthening parents' monitoring and disciplinary skills and building their confidence. The curriculum includes an 11-week basic program that uses videotapes depicting real-life situations. Parents meet in groups and cover topics such as Helping Children Learn, The Value of Praise and Encouragement, Effective Limit Setting, and Handling Misbehavior. The basic program can be supplemented with a videotape training series, Supporting Your Child's Education, which focuses on how parents can help their children academically. Parents may also opt to take the advanced training program, which teaches parents interpersonal skills such as effective communication and problem solving, anger management, and ways to give and get support. Several studies of this training series have revealed that parents and teachers were able to significantly reduce children's problem behaviors and increase their social competence and academic engagement.

• Strengthening Families Program. This 14-week family skills training program is designed to reduce risk factors for substance abuse and other problem behaviors. The program includes three separate courses: Parent Training, Children's Training, and Family Life Skills Training. Families with children ages 6 to 10 attend the program as a family. The parents and children attend separate sessions for the first hour of the program and then come together as a family for the second hour to practice the skills they have learned. Parents learn strategies for effective family communication, problem solving, and limit setting while children learn about communication, social skills, and ways to resist peer pressure. Positive outcomes have been found in a number of independent program evaluations. The program reduced children's problem behaviors, improved children's emotional status and prosocial skills, and improved parenting skills and family environment and functioning.

• Prenatal and Early Childhood Nurse Home Visitation Program. This program is designed to improve the health and social functioning of low-income first-time mothers and their babies. Nurse home visitors develop a supportive relationship with the pregnant mother and family and provide them with information on personal and environmental health, maternal roles, life course development, and the value of support from family and friends. The home visits continue until the child reaches age 2, with the frequency of visits varying depending on the child's age. Two randomized clinical trials reveal substantial reductions in rates of cigarette smoking among pregnant women, hypertensive disorders, child maltreatment, and subsequent pregnancy among low-income, unmarried women.

• Multisystemic Therapy (MST). The primary goals of this intensive home-based family treatment are to reduce rates of antisocial behavior in youth ages 10 to 18, reduce out-of-home placements, and empower families to resolve difficulties. Goals are developed in collaboration with the family, and family strengths are used as levers for change. MST treats factors in the youth's environment that are contributing to behavior problems in addition to addressing individual characteristics of the youth such as poor problem-solving skills, academic difficulties, or association with deviant peers. Randomized clinical trials have demonstrated that the program reduces long-term rates of criminal activity, incarceration, and concomitant costs.

• Project SEEK (Services to Enable and Empower Kids). This program focuses on families with children from birth through age 11 in which a parent is in prison. The program is designed to reduce the probability that children of inmates will participate in delinquent or criminal activities, thereby breaking the intergenerational cycle of criminality. This comprehensive program is a home visitation model that works to improve parenting practices and the child's social competency, cognitive development, and emotional well-being; promote a positive caregiving environment; and maintain appropriate parent-child relationships while the parent is incarcerated. Preliminary analyses show an increase in youth's cognitive skills, academic self-esteem, and internal locus of control; lower recidivism among released inmates; and a significant reduction in the number of times youth change schools.

  Programs are divided into exemplary, model, and promising categories based on the degree, quality, and outcomes of research associated with them. Table 2 lists the programs by population served and age category and may be helpful in determining at a glance which programs best meet the needs of a community. Further information on the selection process and program classification follows.² This information may benefit nonprofit agency service providers, researchers, government agency representatives, and others in their search for outstanding family-based programs for the prevention of juvenile delinquency, violence, and substance abuse in communities across the country.

1999 Search for Effective Programs

OJJDP, CSAP, and the University of Utah established a pool of programs for committee review. In previous searches, the University of Utah solicited nominations from every State in the United States. In the original 1989 search, for example, the committee reviewed more than 500 programs. During the 1999 search, CSAP and the University of Utah used unique strategies to identify potential programs for consideration. Programs were drawn primarily from:

• Model programs identified in the 1994 search.
• Programs identified in Preventing Substance Abuse Among Children and Adolescents: Family Centered Approaches (Center for Substance Abuse Prevention, 1998).
• A search of the scientific literature.
• Recommendations from program developers.

University of Utah staff working with OJJDP and staff from the National Center for the Advancement of Prevention (NCAP) working with CSAP contacted program developers directly to request their formal submissions. Not all program developers who were contacted chose to participate in the search. Failure to participate was due to either lack of time to compile the information needed or other reasons.

Program Submissions

Program developers submitted 10-page descriptions of their programs and research publications or evaluation reports detailing the effectiveness of the programs. If applicable, they also were asked to provide the program curriculum material. The 10-page descriptions provided information on the following areas:

• Program history.
• Theoretical assumptions.
• Expected outcomes.
• Target population.
• Format and content of the program.
• Teaching methods.
• Staffing requirements.
• Evaluation methodology, including research design, measures, data collection, analyses, and results.
• Replicability.
• Capacity for dissemination.

This information was forwarded to a panel of experts on the National Program Review Committee (NPRC).

National Program Review Committee

NPRC comprised five groups, each consisting of three experts. Each of these groups focused on one of the following areas: family therapy, family skills training, in-home family support, and parenting programs.³ The groups reviewed and rated the programs and reached consensus regarding the categorization of each program. CSAP staff, together with University of Utah staff, determined the final categorization of programs.

Rating/Categorization of Programs

NPRC used numerous criteria to rate and categorize programs, including the following:

• Theory.
• Fidelity of the intervention.
• Sampling strategy and implementation.
• Attrition.
• Measures.
• Data collection.
• Missing data.
• Analysis.
• Replicability.
• Dissemination capability.
• Cultural and age appropriateness.
• Program integrity.
• Program utility.

Reviewers rated each program independently, discussed their ratings, and made final determinations regarding the appropriate category. The following categories were used:

• Exemplary I. The program has evaluation of the highest quality, an experimental design with a randomized sample, and replication by an independent investigator other than the program developer. Outcome data from numerous research studies show clear evidence of program effectiveness.

• Exemplary II. The program has evaluation of the highest quality and an experimental design with a randomized sample. Outcome data from numerous research studies show clear evidence of program effectiveness.

• Model. The program has research of either an experimental or quasi-experimental design with few or no replications. Outcome data from the research project(s) indicate program effectiveness, but the data are not as strong in demonstrating program effectiveness as are the data for the exemplary categories.

• Promising. The program has limited research and/or employs nonexperimental designs. Evaluation data associated with the program appear promising but require confirmation using scientific techniques. The theoretical base or some other aspect of the program is also sound.

These categories are important in assessing the degree of scientific rigor of the programs' outcome results and in matching programs to identified needs in a community.

Meeting Community Needs

Communities should consider a number of factors in deciding which practices best meet their needs (Kumpfer and Alvarado, 1997). It is crucial that communities establish specific need in relation to family-focused programming. In identifying this need, communities may examine community statistics on such topics as juvenile crime, teen pregnancy, births, and needs assessments. Significant factors that communities should consider when selecting an intervention include:

• The developmental appropriateness of the intervention.
• The risk status of the target population (general or universal, selective or high risk, or indicated or in crisis).
• Cultural and language traditions in a community.
• Appropriateness and effectiveness of the recruitment and retention strategies.
• Intensity of the program (e.g., 7 weeks versus 14 weeks, 2 hours versus 5 hours).
• Availability of appropriate program staff.
• Resources available in the community.

Conclusion

The movement to focus on families has made great strides over the past decade. With agencies such as OJJDP and CSAP working together to support the dissemination and adoption of theory-based and effective programs, high-quality prevention programs have reached families across the country. Service providers are teaching effective parenting strategies in their communities and have touched the lives of youth and parents who want positive futures. Through the Strengthening America's Families Initiative, many more parents and children will be reached as more community leaders choose to invest in families in their efforts to decrease juvenile delinquency.

Notes

1. The first three of these programs are described in greater detail in OJJDP's Family Strengthening Series of Bulletins; the fourth program is also described in an OJJDP Bulletin. These publications (The Incredible Years Training Series, Family Skills Training for Parents and Children, Prenatal and Early Childhood Nurse Home Visitation, and Treating Serious Anti-Social Behavior in Youth: The MST Approach) can be found online at OJJDP's Web site, www.ojjdp.ncjrs.org.

2. Additional information about the initiative or individual programs can be found at www.strengtheningfamilies.org or by contacting Rose Alvarado or Kay Kendall at the University of Utah by calling 801-585-9201, e-mailing fsp@health.utah.edu, or faxing 801-581-5872.

3. Two of the groups focused on this last program type.

References

Bry, B.H. 1996. Psychological approaches to prevention. In Drug Policy and Human Nature: Psychological Perspectives on the Prevention, Management, and Treatment of Illicit Drug Abuse, edited by W.K. Bickel and R.J. DeGrandpre. New York, NY: Plenum Press, pp. 55-76.

Center for Substance Abuse Prevention. 1998. Preventing Substance Abuse Among Children and Adolescents: Family Centered Approaches. Prevention Enhancement Protocols System (PEPS). Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, Center for Substance Abuse Prevention.

Huizinga, D., Loeber, R., and Thornberry, T.P. 1995. Urban Delinquency and Substance Abuse: Recent Findings From the Program of Research on the Causes and Correlates of Delinquency. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.

Kumpfer, K.L., and Alvarado, R. 1995. Strengthening families to prevent drug use in multiethnic youth. In Drug Abuse Prevention with Multiethnic Youth, edited by G. Botvin, S. Schinke, and M. Orlandi. Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications, Inc., pp. 253-292.

Kumpfer, K.L., and Alvarado, R. 1997. Effective Family Strengthening Interventions. Bulletin. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.