Three social contexts-family, neighborhood youth centers, and peer relationships-were examined in relation to several measures of adjustment among 1,406 mostly minority, inner-city adolescents. Family and center involvement were directly related to 3 of the 4 adjustment measures (i.e., achievement orientation, emotion regulation, attitudes toward school). Peer connections interacted with family and center involvement to also predict these variables. Substance use, the fourth adjustment measure, was related only to family involvement. Significant 3-way interactions suggested that within urban settings, favorable attitudes toward school may best be achieved when family, neighborhood youth center, and peer involvement are all strong. The combined effects of these 3 contexts appear to be greater among younger adolescents. Implications for promoting urban youth development programs are discussed.

Although family therapy literature reflects an increased consideration of cultural and contextual issues, there is little guidance on how to address intersecting forms of oppression and privilege within the supervisory system. In this article, we show the importance of critical consciousness in addressing these issues. Additionally, we provide concrete suggestions and tools for developing critical consciousness through supervision. The practices and tools we provide resulted from ongoing and deliberate discussions of an inquiry group that consisted of supervisor candidates and supervisors of supervision. Our goal in writing this article is to describe the strategies that we have found to be crucial in becoming more competent supervisors and therapists.

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This article presents evaluation results of a police training curriculum to reduce disproportionate minority contact (DMC). The Effective Police Interactions With Youth training curriculum is developed in conjunction with a police task group to address the greater proportion of minority youth entering the juvenile justice system relative to the number of White youth. A pretest-posttest experimental design that included follow-up is used to assess changes in patrol officers' knowledge of and attitudes toward youth. A total of 468 Connecticut patrol officers participate in the evaluation. Results support the effectiveness of the training curriculum in enhancing police officers' knowledge of DMC, youth behavior, and effective strategies for interacting with youth.

In this article, we present the Critical Genogram (CritG) and illustrate its use in helping therapists move toward deeper understanding of the influence of social and institutional systems on individual and familial dynamics. We present the results of a qualitative study that evaluated the exercise of constructing and presenting the CritG in a family therapy graduate course. Using feminist-informed critical multicultural lens, we examined the use of the CritG exercise in helping family therapy students move toward critical consciousness. Our findings indicate that the CritG exercise provides valuable insight into the impact of social, political, and economic systems on individual and family life. Furthermore, it opens up space for creating new meanings and ways of conceptualizing familial and individual processes. Implications for therapist training and clinical practice are discussed.

In this article, we report the results of a survey that accessed the perceptions of family studies and family therapy international master's and doctoral students across the United States. Our goals included giving collective voice to the experience of international students and gathering their suggestions for improving programs. Themes that emerged from responses to open- and closed-ended questions included feeling (mis)understood and (de)valued; forming personal connections and experiencing marginalization; the importance of including international perspectives in curricula; considering the relevance/transferability of knowledge; and attending to barriers to learning. Based on the results, we share suggestions for improving family studies and family therapy graduate programs relative to program planning, curricula revision, teaching strategies, and faculty development.