Project Objectives
The clinical goal of the PFF Project is to increase therapeutic skills. The project provides training in an evidence-based treatment to practitioners who work with parents and children, in order to promote effective discipline and positive parent-child relations.
The evidence-based treatment implemented in the PFF Project is called Alternatives for Families: A Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (AF-CBT). The goal is to teach focused Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT) to families who use physical discipline techniques, experience parent-child conflict, or who have been involved with the child welfare system.
The project evaluates the effectiveness of learning and using an evidence-based treatment and how it affects practitioner skill, family engagement in treatment, child welfare status, and overall mental health functioning.
The PFF Project provides four days of training to accommodate the schedules of the different agencies involved in the project. The first training was held in August and September of 2006, followed by another round of trainings in the spring and fall of 2007, with the final training held in August 2008. After the four-day training, each agency receives tailored consultation sessions to provide assistance to the counselors in the implementation of the treatment approach.
Counselors who do not receive the initial training will have the option to receive the AF-CBT training when the project is complete.
