Functional Family Therapy through Child Welfare (FFT-CW)

Functional Family Therapy through Child Welfare (FFT-CW)

Functional Family Therapy through Child Welfare (FFT-CW) is an adaptation of Functional Family Therapy (FFT) that was designed to provide services to youth (0-18 years old) and families in child welfare settings. Services are provided through two tracks: a Low Risk (LR) track provided by interventionists based on our Functional Family Probation (FFP) model (see FFP tab), and a High Risk (HR) track based on our standard FFT model. Services are linked through a triage process that matches youth to appropriate level of services based on level of youth and family risk.

Early research on FFT showed the promise of the intervention for youth and families in child welfare (Barton et al., 1985). Specifically, this study demonstrated that youth at risk for outplacement who were treated by case workers in the child welfare system had significantly lower foster placement referrals (11%) than youth treated by case workers with no or limited training in FFT (49%). Also, there was a significant reduction in the units of service per family (14.7 to 6.2). These findings showed the promise of FFT in child welfare settings, not only with respect to clinical outcomes, but also with respect to costs. That is, the data suggests that the FFT trained workers did a better job and did it less expensively (p. 21) (Barton et al., 1985).

Holly DeMaranville

FFT inc.

hollyfft@comcast.net

(206) 369-5894 - cell