Incorporating Multi-Family Group Therapy

into the Group Home Structure

By Diana Heath, Melissa A. Shead, Sheila Banett, Christina Rivera, William Rivera, Nora Chambers, Sheryl Braswell, Christopher O. Barrett, William Worsley, & Don Taylor of Youth Homes Inc., Charlotte, N.C. 1996

    Many Multi-Family Group Therapy (MFGT) issues are incorporated within the daily teaching of residents in the home.  MFGT is easily woven into the tapestry of the group home program by the teaching parents (TP).  In our program at Youth Homes, Inc. in Charlotte, TP's strategically gear their interactions with residents surrounding common themes, that may have begun with the MFGT sessions.

    Issues discussed at MFGT are addressed using the nightly family conference which is a "business meeting" of the group home.  These meetings are designed to discuss rules, changes, resident reminders and social interaction issues.  Further, these family conferences are used to review home notes which track weekend and holiday home visits and point cards which track daily resident behaviors.  TP's frequently use this time to provide learning opportunities and to teach alternatives to inappropriate behaviors.

    Family members, as well as other significant members of the resident's system such as girlfriends, relatives, mentors, are encouraged to visit the group home for dinner, fun nights or just to observe how the  TP's organize an run the program.

    These visits allow opportunities for parents and the residents to discuss new issues or continue to work through current issues with staff guidance.  Further, TPs have an excellent opportunity to observe parental interactions with their children.  From these informal gatherings to formal family meetings, TPs gain insight into issues that may need to be incorporated into MFGT sessions.  In addition, TPs get to observe how work already done in MFGT sessions is applied.

    By bonding with our residents and their families, keeping our ears, minds, and hearts open, we believe we at Youth Homes, Inc., have developed a solution-oriented winning combination of group home reality with MFGT theory.

    This appeared in the Summer 1996 N.C. Multiple Family Group Therapy Networking Newsletter, Volume 2, Number 1, Natalie Boorman, Editor.