Adolescents at Risk Home-Based Family Therapy and School-Based Intervention

Rich with illustrative case material, this book guides mental health professionals to break the cycle of at-risk behavior by engaging adolescents and their families in home, school, and community contexts. The authors explore the multigenerational patterns that shape the lives of poor and ethnic minority adolescents and present innovative strategies for intervening beyond the walls of the agency or clinic. Grounded in research, the book shows how to implement both home-based family therapy and school-based achievement mentoring to provide a comprehensive web of support. Building on the earlier Reaching Out in Family Therapy, this book reflects the ongoing development of the authors' multisystems approach and many other important changes in the field; the majority of the content is completely new. It is an indispensable resource for beginning and experienced professionals or text for courses on adolescent intervention or adolescent mental health.

1. Introduction and Overview of the Book
I. At-Risk Adolescents and Their Families
2. At-Risk Adolescents and Their Families
3. Cultural, Racial, and Socioeconomic Issues
4. Working with Kinship Care Families
5. Multigenerational Patterns in Families of At-Risk Adolescents
II. The Multisystems Model and Home-Based Family Therapy
6. The Multisystems Model and Home-Based Family Therapy
7. Multisystemic Therapy (MST)
8. Multisystems Model Case Example
9. Supervision and Training for Home-Based Family Therapists
III. Achievement Mentoring: An Evidence-Based, School-Based Intervention
10. School Engagement, Disengagement, Dropout, and a Learning Theory Approach, Patricia Simon
11. Achievement Mentoring Program
12. Communication Skills for Achievement Mentoring
13. Achievement Mentoring: A Case Example
14. Achievement Mentoring Implementation in Schools, with Mina Yadegar
IV. Research
15. Relevant Research for Home-Based Family Therapists and Achievement Mentors
Author Index
Subject Index

Nancy Boyd-Franklin, PhD, is an African American clinical psychologist and family therapist and is a Distinguished Professor in the Graduate School of Applied and Professional Psychology at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. Her outstanding contributions have been recognized with awards from many professional organizations, including the American Family Therapy Academy, the Association of Black Psychologists, the American Psychological Association (Divisions 45 and 43), the Association of Black Social Workers, and the American Psychiatric Association, and she has received an honorary doctorate from the Phillips Graduate Institute. Dr. Boyd-Franklin is the author or coauthor of numerous articles and books, including Adolescents at Risk: Home-Based Family Therapy and School-Based Intervention; Black Families in Therapy, Second Edition: Understanding the African American Experience; and Therapy in the Real World: Effective Treatments for Challenging Problems.

Brenna Hafer Bry, PhD, is Professor Emerita in the Graduate School of Applied and Professional Psychology at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, where she served as Department Chair and Director of Clinical Training. Her research has focused on risk factors that predict adolescent conduct problems. She discovered that the probability of youths’ future problems increases as their number of risk factors increases, and that their probability of future problems can be reduced by reducing their number of risk factors. She subsequently developed and evaluated the Achievement Mentoring Program, a school-based intervention that reduces numbers of risk factors, which she is currently disseminating. Dr. Bry is a recipient of the Prevention Science Award from the Prevention Research Society.