Family-focused Counseling: A New Dimension in Probation

Abstract

Probation and child welfare workers are looking for ways to serve their clients more effectively and efficiently. New research on family diagnosis and treatment, role theory, and crisis theory can be helpful. However, not much of this new material has appeared in the literature that is most widely read by probation and child welfare workers. This article describes the theories of family interaction, social role, and crisis; and then, through the use of illustrations from probation and child welfare cases, applies these theories to the primary tasks of workers in these settings—diagnosis, prediction, choice of treatment method, and treatment itself. It also examines the question that is especially applicable to workers carrying unmanageable caseloads: Whom shall you serve, and when?