Program planners must be aware of the historical emphasis placed on the extended family, recognize the importance of family structure patterns, and analyze the value orientation and purposeful behavior of the American Indian people to assure the delivery of quality services to American Indian communities.

Effective policy development of human service delivery to American Indians depends on an understanding of cultural characteristics and extended family networks

American Indian elders play a central role in the day-to-day activities of Indian family life. Social service providers must be aware of Indian extended family structure so that programs for Indians will reflect the inclination of these communities to integrate the generations, not isolate elders from children.

Home services are designed to stabilize and preserve families at risk of dissolutio n while protecting the safety of all family members. These services provide at-risk families with intensive crisis intervention and family education and are based in the home. This study provides descriptive and evaluative outcome data from 4,866 children, 2,716 parents and 1,729 family cases. These families were treated by two North Dakota providers of family preservation services at some point in the course of the past 10 years. 1 The data presented here were collected throughou t this time period. Depending on the presenting problems and the de nition of out-of-home placement, this research demonstrates that between 70% and 94% of families involved with Intensive In-Home Placement stayed together during the 12 months following intervention . Overall analysis reveals that most families showed substantia l improvements in functioning .