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Strengthening Families Enrichment Program

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Encyclopedia of Couple and Family Therapy

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Name of Model

Strengthening Families Program

Introduction

The Strengthening Families Program (SFP) is an evidence-based family skills training prevention intervention that parents and their children attend together. Developed in 1982, it was the first selective prevention program for high-risk children of substance abusing caregivers. SFP typically begins with a family-style meal, and then for the first hour, parents, teens, and children attend their separate skills training classes. Families rejoin for the second hour, and practice skills together that they learned in class. Studies show that when the whole family attends family skills training classes for 7–14 weeks, it improves family relations long-term.

Comparative effectiveness reviews such as the Cochrane Reviews at Oxford University found SFP is twice as effective as other prevention interventions for school-age youth. SFP also reduced child maltreatment and days in foster care by half (Brook et al. 2012). One cultural...

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, USA

    Karol L. Kumpfer

  2. University of Houston, Houston, TX, USA

    Jing Xie

  3. Polytechnic Institute of Viseu, Viseu, Portugal

    Cátia Magalhães

  4. Strengthening Families Foundation, Salt Lake City, UT, USA

    Jaynie Brown

Authors
  1. Karol L. Kumpfer
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  2. Jing Xie
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  3. Cátia Magalhães
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  4. Jaynie Brown
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Karol L. Kumpfer .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. The Family Institute at Northwestern University, Center for Applied Psychological and Family Studies, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA

    Jay L. Lebow

  2. The Family Institute at Northwestern University, Center for Applied Psychological and Family Studies, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA

    Anthony L. Chambers

  3. The Family Institute at Northwestern University, Center for Applied Psychological and Family Studies, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA

    Douglas C. Breunlin

Section Editor information

  1. Council for Relationships, Philadelphia, PA, USA

    Heather Pederson

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Kumpfer, K.L., Xie, J., Magalhães, C., Brown, J. (2019). Strengthening Families Enrichment Program. In: Lebow, J.L., Chambers, A.L., Breunlin, D.C. (eds) Encyclopedia of Couple and Family Therapy. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-49425-8_374

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