Eckerd Connects’ Functional Family Therapy (FFT) is an empirically grounded, well-documented and highly successful family intervention program for youth ages 11 – 18 involved in the juvenile justice system and their families. Intervention ranges from, on average, 8 to 12 one-hour sessions for mild cases and up to 30 sessions of direct service for more difficult situations, with an average length of service of three months. Services are offered in the family’s home with flexibility to work around the family’s schedule.
Phase-based Goals of FFT:
- Engage youth and family members into treatment by establishing your credibility by being responsive and available.
- Motivate youth and their families with successful engagement and motivation through respect, sensitivity, and positive reattribution techniques.
- Assess interpersonal functions within the family to organize/match interventions.
- Reduce and eliminate the problem behaviors and accompanying family relational patterns through individualized behavior change interventions.
- Generalize changes across problem situations by increasing the family’s capacity to utilize community resources and to engage in relapse prevention.
