We offer clinical and organizational training and consultation to agencies seeking to implement family-centered approaches in their programs. Since then, family-centered services has expanded from a particular type of service to an overall philosophy for the delivery of services to families across child welfare, mental health, juvenile justice, and early intervention services. In order to understand family complexity, it is useful to enter as an anthropologist eliciting family meaning rather than as a missionary assigning professional meaning to their experience.
All families have competencies and know-how as well as capacities to grow and change.
It's useful to shift from identifying pathology to eliciting competence, connection and hope. Services are more effective and efficient when we focus on what is and could be rather than just on what isn't and should be. Since helpers are in a leadership position in relationships with families, collaboration begins with helpers finding ways to cooperate with clients rather than simply expecting clients to cooperate with helpers. Working in partnership suggests a shift from working on professional turf to working on family turf. In order to avoid inadvertent disempowerment, we need to actively solicit and respond to feedback from clients about the effects of our work with them.