Introduction

The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) is dedicated to preventing and reversing trends of increased delinquency and violence among adolescents. These trends have alarmed the public during the past decade and challenged the juvenile justice system. It is widely accepted that increases in delinquency and violence over the past decade are rooted in a number of interrelated social problems—child abuse and neglect, alcohol and drug abuse, youth conflict and aggression, and early sexual involvement—that may originate within the family structure. The focus of OJJDP’s Family Strengthening Series is to provide assistance to ongoing efforts across the country to strengthen the family unit by discussing the effectiveness of family intervention programs and providing resources to families and communities.

Problems arising from juvenile crime are a serious concern for many local communities. Expressions of adolescent behavior problems range from minor offenses (e.g., curfew violations and trespassing) to serious crimes (e.g., drug abuse, theft, and violence) and result in staggering personal, economic, and social costs. Until recently, most communities were left on their own to determine how to address juvenile crime, and many communities turned to exclusively punitive approaches such as incarceration. Mounting evidence, however, indicates that such approaches are ineffective and costly. By removing adolescents from their families and communities, punitive programs inadvertently make adolescents’ problems more difficult to solve in the long run. Regardless of how adolescents’ problems manifest themselves, they are complex behavioral problems embedded in adolescents’ psychosocial systems (primarily family and community). Thus, family-based interventions that adopt a multisystemic perspective are well suited to treating the broad range of problems found in juveniles who engage in delinquent and criminal behavior.

Functional Family Therapy (FFT) is a family-based prevention and intervention program that has been applied successfully in a variety of contexts to treat a range of these high-risk youth and their families. As such, FFT is a good example of the current generation of family-based treatments for adolescent behavior problems (Mendel, 2000; Sexton and Alexander, 1999). It combines and integrates the following elements into a clear and comprehensive clinical model: established clinical theory, empirically supported principles, and extensive clinical experience. The FFT model allows for successful intervention in complex and multidimensional problems through clinical practice that is flexibly structured and culturally sensitive—and also accountable to youth, their families, and the community.

Although commonly used as an intervention program, FFT is also an effective prevention program for at-risk adolescents and their families. Whether implemented as an intervention or a prevention program, FFT may include diversion, probation, alternatives to incarceration, and/or reentry programs for youth returning to the community following release from a high-security, severely restrictive institutional setting.

Based on the results of extensive independent reviews, FFT has been designated variously as a “blueprint program” (Alexander et al., 2000), an “exemplary model” program (Alexander, Robbins, and Sexton, 1999), and a “family based empirically supported treatment” (Alexander, Sexton, and Robbins, 2000). These designations reflect FFT’s 30 years of clinical and research experience and its use at a wide range of intervention sites in the United States and other countries.

FFT targets youth between the ages of 11 and 18 from a variety of ethnic and cultural groups. It also provides treatment to the younger siblings of referred adolescents. FFT is a short-term intervention—including, on average, 8 to 12 sessions for mild cases and up to 30 hours of direct service (e.g., clinical sessions, telephone calls, and meetings involving community resources) for more difficult cases. In most cases, sessions are spread over a 3-month period. Regardless of the target population, FFT emphasizes the importance of respecting all family members on their own terms (i.e., as they experience the intervention process).

Data from numerous studies of FFT outcomes suggest that when applied as intended, FFT reduces recidivism and/or the onset of offending between 25 and 60 percent more effectively than other programs (Alexander et al., 2000). Other studies indicate that FFT reduces treatment costs to levels well below those of traditional services and other interventions (Alexander et al., 2000). As FFT has evolved, it has adopted a set of guiding principles, goals, and techniques that can be used even when resources are limited—for example, in managed care and similar contexts that restrict open-ended and non-outcome-based resource funding.

Functional Family Therapy	Juvenile Justice Bulletin • December 2000