Conclusion
Although recognizing that the family is only one cause among many of aggressive
and delinquent behavior, we have emphasized its primacy because of its
importance in the development and early control of aggressiveness, which
is one of the strongest predictors of delinquency. We also recognize that,
for some adolescents, families may not be available, perhaps because of
exhaustion of resources, a long placement history, chronic maltreatment,
or parent pathology. To work effectively with families, social workers
must believe in their inherent capabilities and search for and support
family strength. At the same time, we must recognize the limit of family
intervention with delinquents and the need for supplementary service and
systems.
We do believe that, when adolescents have families that can be mobilized,
their involvement is vital to develop any comprehensive intervention plan.
Early intervention is key, given the relative stability of early aggressive
behavior and its relationship to delinquency, and a social learning approach
incorporating parent training in family management strategies has demonstrated
efficacy. Explicit efforts to enhance parent-child positive involvement
and the affiliative bond may be necessary where this does not occur as
a result of decreases in aggressive behavior. In addition, parent training
should be supplemented with interventions for strengthening family communication
and problem-solving skills to address stress both within the family and
outside of it. The most promising trends in family-based interventions
are enhanced interventions, or the multisystemic model, which attend to
the social context of the adolescent and family. A broad conception of
intervention with families, one that takes a supportive stance and considers
parents as partners in advocacy for their child's needs, is important to
coordinating needed intervention.
We have suggested that prevention and intervention must address multiple
targets at multiple system levels, again highlighting the relationship
of the family to these targets and systems. Intervention that focuses solely
on microprocesses in families will generally be inadequate to address the
complex problems that juvenile delinquency presents, not the least because
delinquent behavior itself becomes a force driving interaction, further
contributing to family disorganization and distress. Programs that target
multiple predictors of delinquency are particularly promising. Furthermore,
because delinquent adolescents are seen in many different service systems,
there is a strong need for coordinating children's service system. The
current focus on families in the juvenile justice system calls for a broadly
defined, coordinated, community-based system of care that addresses multiple
issues and employs our best knowledge about effective family intervention.
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