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irginia

C

apitol

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onnections

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inter

2017

18

Families as a Resource

for School Problems

By Arnold Woodruff

The management of antisocial behavior

of children in school has been making

national headlines as the so-called “school

to prison” pipeline has been highlighted.

A 1995 study of juvenile delinquency in

Colorado

1

concluded:

Overall, the varied findings continue to

suggest the importance of prevention

efforts. These efforts must occur early,

before violent careers arewell established

and usually before contact with the

juvenile justice system occurs. They

must be comprehensive to deal with the multiple behavioral

and personal problems characteristic of these individuals. The

findings about resilience are very encouraging, indicating

that malleable factors that reduce violence exist and provide

opportunities for intervention efforts. These same findings,

however, also suggest that interventions must be active over a

multi-year period. Thus, early, comprehensive, and long-term

interventions seem dearly needed. (pg.79)

While this study did focus on the most dangerous and aggressive

of youth behaviors, much the same intervention strategy has proven

useful in other instances of youth and child misbehavior at school,

including behaviors that might be labelled as due to mental health

disorders, conduct disorders or intellectual/cognitive impairment.

The burden on school systems to provide the early identification

of children who may become at risk and the further personnel

and financial burden of providing adequate, timely and effective

intervention to prevent escalation to more serious levels of behavior

is, to say the least, daunting.

The study indicates that there are many factors which contribute to

the evolution of “bad” behavior in children. At later ages, peer pressure

is a strong influence, but it appears that peer influence emerges

primarily in youth who have had previous indicators of risk and are,

therefore, more vulnerable to the influences. At younger ages, the

factors that correlate with antisocial behavior are much more likely to

stem from the home and cultural environment. Bronfenbrebber

2

has

outlined the multiple levels of systems that interact in creating and

maintain behavior patterns, both good and bad, in children. In early

life, of course, the family system is the most critical in the formation

of behavior while later the school and, later still, peer pressures impact

as well. However, it is clear that the single most important and longest

lasting of these systems is the family. Schools do understand this

and, in fact, the Federal law regulating the treatment planning and

management of children in need of special education services identify

the parent as the leader of the mandated Individual Education Plan

(IEP). These plans, created in multi-person team meetings are intended

to assure that any child with special needs is adequately assessed and

services needed to insure successful educational interventions are in

place. In practice, both resource limitations and other factors make

this process less than ideal. From most parents’ perspective, the IEP

meeting can be very intimidating. The parent is frequently ushered into

a room with a table full of school personnel, many unknown to the

parent. Each of these attendees may have a stack of files and reports

in front of them. Again, many have not been seen by the parent and,

frankly, might not be understood without specialized knowledge of the

language and acronyms of the various professions represented. It is

also frequently the situation that the parent is struggling with many of

the same systemic issues that are impacting the child: poverty, difficult

living arrangements, mental health concerns and/or substance abuse

issues. These factors too often lead to a meeting that feels oppositional

or confrontational and leads to mutual recrimination between the

parent and the school.

Family therapists are uniquely trained and qualified to mediate

in these kinds of situations. Family therapy training focuses on how

relationships within and between social systems can be modified so

that communication is clear and desired outcomes can be achieved.

Currently, family therapy, although recognized at the Federal level

as one of six core mental health disciplines (along with psychiatry,

psychology, nursing, social work and mental health counseling),

is not an eligible recipient of special education funding and are,

therefore, not generally included in the IEP process unless the family

is being seen by a family therapist through other funding sources,

e.g., Medicaid, private insurance). This is truly unfortunate as the

specialized training in understanding the operation of systems,

whether those be the family system or other social systems, would be

an invaluable addition to the IEP team and the process and would, in

many cases, reduce the dissonance between the school and the parent.

Family therapy has been recognized by the United States

Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration

3

as

an effective intervention both as a preventative measure for the

earliest manifestations of potential behavior problems, but also as

an effective treatment for child and adolescent problems across the

behavioral spectrum, including mental health, substance abuse and

cognitive disabilities. One measure that would improve the outcomes

for children with mental health or behavior problems in the school

would be to include licensed marriage and family therapists within

the counseling departments to provide better support for both the

school and the parents as the work to provide the best education

possible for children with special needs.

1

Denver Youth Survey, et al. “Recent findings on the causes and

correlates of juvenile delinquency. 1995. Available at NCJRS.gov

2

Addison, J. T. (1992). Urie Bronfenbrenner.

Human Ecology

, 20(2),

16-20.

3

Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. 1998.

Family-Centered Approaches

. Prevention Enhancement Protocols

Systems (PEPS). Washington, DC: Superintendent of Documents,

U.S. Government Printing Office.

Arnold Woodruff is a Licensed MFT and Executive Director of

VAMFT. Woodruff is semiretired after a 45 year career in public

health and child welfare.

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