Psychologists' role in a family-centered approach to practice, training, and research with young children.

Abstract

Family-centered, community-based, coordinated care for children with special needs is presented as the best practice model for providing services to children and families. Psychologists must learn to play an active role in this frame-work that both integrates psychology with other health and education disciplines and uses the broad spectrum of psychological knowledge about families, development, community organization, and intervention strategies. Key principles of family-centered child psychology affect practice research and training. The psychologist becomes part of a team created to support families as the primary care-givers of their children. Training programs must reorganize the types of experiences both in the classroom and the field to train new psychologists within this model. As mandates for family-centered care affect policies at the state and federal levels, research will remain a critical factor in understanding the effects of these policy shifts on child and family functioning and the delivery of services.

La qualité relationnelle dans la famille recomposée : perspectives du parent et de l’enfant

“…L'appréciation mutuelle de la relation qu'entretiennent le parent et l'enfant constitue la variable dépendante de la présente étude. À l'instar de nombreux travaux déjà publiés, la repré-sentation que chacun se fait des relations familiales y est utilisée comme base de l'évaluation de l'ajustement familial (Hinde et Stevenson-Hinde, 1988;Oison et McCubbin, 1983;Roberts et Magrab, 1991). La notion de qualité relationnelle renvoie donc ici à l'appréciation que fait l'enfant ou le parent des interactions qu'il vit dans sa famille recomposée.…”

Contextual assessment of young children: moving from the strange to the familiar and from theory to praxis

“…There is no doubt that this approach can provide a wealth of information. However, it is one step removed from the child's everyday experience, learning, and interactional contexts (Bronfenbrenner, 1979;Roberts and Magrab, 1991) and often sidesteps the parents, as indicated above. In this process, 'scientific' theory and explanation is often privileged over the lived experience of the child and family (Kaye, 1990;Van Manen, 1990).…”

“…The element most often missing in assessment in CONTEXTUAL information, which is the information that contributes to the 'ecological validity' of an assessment (Roberts and Magrab, 1991). This can be provided by giving attention to the following principles (and preferably, to all of them).…”

Symposium VI: Intervention and Measurement: Facilitating Readiness

“…The policy decisions behind this legislation have important implications for early childhood researchers and interventionists interested in improving the general health and educational outcomes of families. The approach to intervention created in this legislation requires a paradigm shift in its implementation that emphasizes systems that are family centered, community based, coordinated and culturally competent (Roberts & Magrab, 1991;Roberts, Wasik, Casto, & b e y , 1991).…”