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Annual Report on School Safety--October 1998
Families and Schools Together (FAST), for children ages 3- 14, is a promising social support enhancing program which builds protective factors into the lives of children. After referral by an elementary school teacher, parents who have graduated from FAST make home visits to invite a child and his or her whole family to participate in the program. Families are clustered in groups of 10 to 12 according to where their children attend school, and then attend eight weekly sessions of highly interactive and fun activities run by a team of professionals from the community. Following this initial phase, groups of families run their own meetings for two years while continuing to receive support from the FAST team as needed. FAST strengthens communities, schools, and families by reaching out to socially isolated families, creating support networks, and encouraging parents to take leadership roles in the program. Of the families which come to one FAST meeting, over 80 percent remain at least to the end of the initial eight week phase. Over the following two years, schools report dramatic increases in parental involvement (75 percent) and self-referral to family counseling (26 percent) and substance abuse treatment (8 percent). In scientific studies, teachers and parents have re-ported behavior improvements among referred youth, in-creases in family cohesion, and decreases in social isolation.
Contact: Lynn McDonald, FAST Project, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1025 W. Johnson Street, Madison, WI 53706, Tel: 608-263-9476, Fax: 608-263-6488, Email: mrmcdona@facstaff.wisc.edu
First Step to Success, for kindergarten students, is a demonstrated program with proactive screening of all students, a school intervention using the CLASS program (which trains teachers to use behavioral methods to decrease classroom disruption), and parent training to support children's adjustment to school. In early evaluations, First Step to Success appears to reduce aggression and maladaptive behavior as well as the long-term probability that at-risk children will adopt a delinquent lifestyle during their youth.
Contact: Sopris West, 4093 Specialty Place, Longmont, CO 80504, 800-547-6747, Fax: 303-776-5934, Web site: www.sopriswest.com
Functional Family Therapy (FFT),for grades K-12, is a demonstrated family-based intervention. In rigorous evaluations, FFT has consistently produced sustained reductions in juvenile recidivism and sibling entry into high-risk activities when compared to a variety of other individual and group-based treatments. These reductions in adolescent disruptive behavior disorders have been accomplished at smaller expense than alternative approaches. FFT is a short-term change program that motivates families to deal with processes such as intense negative affect that prevent change. Specific strategies are then individualized for families to produce positive changes in family communication and problem-solving, parenting, and the use of community resources.
Contact: Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence, Institute of Behavioral Sciences, University of Colorado at Boulder, Campus Box 442, Boulder, CO 80309-0442, 303- 492-8465, or Project Coordinator Kathie Shafer, 801-585- 1807, E-mail: Shafer@psych.utah.edu
The Strengthening Families Program, for children ages 6- 10, is a demonstrated model originally tested with drug-abusing urban parents in outpatient treatment. It has been culturally modified and found effective with African-American, Asian/Pacific Islander, and Hispanic families. Parents and children attend 14 weekly sessions of two hours each. Parents and children attend separate sessions during the first hour (during which time parents learn about family management and children focus on social skills), and during the second hour they come together for family skills training. To increase participation, incentives such as snacks, transportation, and rewards are used. Evaluations have found significant improvements in parenting skills, children's prosocial behavior, and family relationships.
Contact: Connie Tait, Ph.D., Department of Health Promotion and Education, 300 South 1850 East, Room 215, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84112, 801-585-9201, Fax: 801-581-5872
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