Critical Thinking

Abstract

Services for families with multiple challenges may take the form of intensive services coordination to provide comprehensive supports to address the range of issues facing the family. However, few guidelines are available to help staff make rapid decisions about appropriate actions to take in given circumstances. This report describes an exploratory effort with staff in two programs serving families with multiple challenges to develop a training system called Critical Thinking in order to meet that need. The authors convened the staff as a focus group to provide examples illustrating specific issues or questions they had about their work. The facilitator used techniques of qualitative data analysis to code and develop categories of characteristics of the families being served and strategies intended to address those characteristics. The authors discuss some of the characteristics of families with multiple challenges and related program strategies the staff identified. Implications of the critical thinking process, as well as of the insights about families with multiple challenges, are discussed.

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