Families Facing the Future

Families Facing the Future (formerly Focus on Families) is designed for families with parents who are addicted to drugs. Based on the social development model, the program aims to prevent parents' relapse, help them cope with its occurrence (if it did occur), and reduce the likelihood of substance abuse among their children. It is most appropriate for parents enrolled in methadone treatment who have children ages 3 to 14. Eligible families participate in a 5-hour "family retreat" in which they learn about the curriculum, identify their goals, and participate together in trust-building activities. The first session is followed by 32 curriculum sessions (90 minutes each), conducted twice weekly for 16 weeks. Parent sessions are conducted in the mornings, with practice sessions held in the evenings for parents and children together. Content covered includes family goal setting, relapse prevention, family communication skills, family management skills, creating family expectations about drugs and alcohol, teaching skills to children, and helping children succeed in school. Parent sessions, follow-up, and home-based care management are provided by masters-level social workers using a structured cognitive-affective-behavioral skills training curriculum.

The goal of this program is to prevent parents who are addicted to drugs from relapsing, and to prevent substance abuse among their children.

Although studies evaluating the effectiveness of this program on the behaviors of drug-using parents and their children showed some positive findings, the overall evidence suggested no effects.

The evaluation used an experimental pre-post design with parent treatment and control groups. Evaluation results revealed that parents in the treatment group had significantly higher scores than those in the control group in parent skills, parent drug use, deviant peers, and family management. At the 6-month follow-up, there were few significant differences related to family factors between the experimental and control groups. However, at the 12-month follow-up, parents in the treatment group reported that more rules were defined in their households and reported less domestic conflict than control participants. In addition, experimental parents reported less drug use than controls at 12 months. Few significant changes were noted in children's attitudes and behaviors.