NCJ Number
191901
Journal
Journal of Offender Rehabilitation Volume: 33 Issue: 1 Dated: 2001 Pages: 1-31
Date Published
2001
Length
31 pages
Annotation
This article presents an overview of the Family Empowerment Intervention (FEI), a systems-oriented intervention delivered in-home to delinquent youths and their families by well-trained nontherapists.
Abstract
The FEI provides highly interactive, experiential activities that facilitate a positive emotional climate, revitalize a family's natural strengths, and improve interpersonal skills. In addition, many of these interventions and activities facilitate a more effective, adaptive, and workable family structure. The FEI is informed by four theoretical approaches: systemic, which views family members as interconnected and interdependent of a larger system; structural, which emphasizes family organization and interactive processes as key concepts in understanding a family; transgenerational, which understands the family as being comprised of an entire kinship network of at least three generations; and psycho-educational, which emphasizes skill-building and behavioral change. This paper lists the nine FEI intervention goals and describes structural intervention strategies. The four phases of the FEI are outlined. Other topics covered are engaging and moving families through FEI to graduation, the selection and role of the field consultant, the initial training of field consultants, ensuring the integrity of intervention services, crisis intervention, and staff and family safety issues. 38 references