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OCR Page 1 of 36U.S. Department of Justice
Office of Justice Programs
Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention
OJJDP FACT Shay Bilchik, Administrator SHEET December 1998 #88
Families and Schools Together
by Lynn McDonald, M.S.W., Ph.D., and Deborah Howard
The Families and Schools Together (FAST) program addresses the
FAST's values and structure are based on selected research in
urgent social problems of youth violence and chronic juvenile
family therapy, child psychiatry, community development, group
delinquency by building and enhancing youth's relationships with
work, and stress and social support. The FAST program helps
their families, peers, teachers, school staff, and other members of the
youth succeed by creating structured opportunities for voluntary
community. These relationships form a social safety net of multifac-
involvement in repeated, positive, personal, interactive, communi-
eted protective factors for young, at-risk children that helps them to
cative, and bonding experiences. These relationship-building
succeed at home, in school, and in the community and to avoid
interactions take place with the children and their primary caretak-
becoming delinquent, violent, or addicted. This safety net helps
ing parents, families, peers, and school and community profession-
prevent:
als. Interventions also take place with the parents and their peers.
Juvenile violence and crime by increasing multiple levels of
The program begins with outreach in which parent-professional
social bonding.
partnerships visit homes of isolated, stressed families, who are
identified by schools, and invite them to the FAST meetings.
Family alcohol and drug abuse by increasing connections, shared
The program brings together 10 to 15 families for 8 to 10 weekly
routines, and resilience.
sessions of carefully crafted social activities. Activities include
Child abuse and neglect by reducing isolation and promoting
building a family flag, sharing a family meal, singing together,
strong families.
playing communication games or feelings-identification games,
engaging in peer activities, and parent networking. In the Special
School failure by promoting parental involvement for school
Play component, parents are coached in one-on-one, nonjudg-
success.
mental, nondirective play therapy with their children. Parents
continue Special Play daily at home. Research on this technique
The FAST Process
at the University of Washington's Department of Psychiatry,
To help youth succeed as adolescents and, subsequently, as adults,
funded by the National Institute of Mental Health, has shown it to
FAST works to (McDonald et al., 1991):
be a successful method for reducing psychiatric symptomatology
of the child (Kogan, 1980).
Enhance family functioning by strengthening the parent-child
relationship and empowering parents to become primary preven-
When families graduate from the weekly FAST sessions, they join
tion agents for their children.
an ongoing, school-based collective of 40 to 50 interdependent
families who meet once a month for 2 years. These FASTWORKS
Prevent school failure by improving the child's behavior and
groups are managed by families who have graduated from the
performance in school, empowering parents in their role as
program, with support from a collaborative team of culturally
partners in the educational process, and strengthening the child's
compatible parents and professionals. One FAST parent is a paid
and family's affiliation with the school.
partner of the team, which plans and leads the activities that
Prevent alcohol and other drug abuse in the family by
systematically strengthen the children's bonds to their family,
increasing the family's awareness and knowledge of substance
school, and community (McDonald, 1991).
abuse and its impact on child development and linking the family
with appropriate assessment and treatment as needed.
Funding
Reduce the stress that families experience from daily life by
Program cost per family is approximately $1,200 for 86 hours of
developing an ongoing support group for parents of at-risk
service over 30 sessions spanning 2 years. The cost per school (with-
children, linking the family with appropriate community re-
out changing the job duties of existing staff) to serve 30 families is
sources, and building the self-esteem of each family member.
$36,000 per year. Major funding sources for implementing the
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