The application and utility of a family assessment procedure in a child psychiatry clinic

Abstract

The application of a method of assessing families from a total family systems viewpoint is explored. It was found that the method (the McMaster Model) was well-suited to routine practice in a British child psychiatry setting with routine clinic referrals. It constituted a good procedure both for assessing and for preparing families for family therapy. In this paper the practical procedure is described. Some of the issues arising from the approach and from the assessment of thirty-four clinic families are discussed. It was also found that the method provided a very good framework for teaching.

The McMaster Approach to Families: theory, assessment, treatment and research

“…They reported that the McMaster Model family assessments correlated well with observational measures of family functioning in the home and laboratory and that the level of family functioning was related to current maternal illness. Other studies have used the FAD in investigations of children who were psychiatric inpatients (McKay et al, 1991), children with ADHD (Cunningham et al, 1988) and outpatients at a child psychiatric clinic (Goodyear et al, 1982).…”

Identifying families at risk: exploring the potential of the McMaster Family Assessment Device

“…A later study looks at internal reliabilities and factorial validity (Kabacoff et al, 1990) and provides support for the continued use of the FAD. Although the FAD was developed in North America, it has been used with families receiving therapy in the U K (Goodyer et al, 1982) and Hungary . These studies indicate that the model has some cross-cultural validity.…”

Family therapy in a community mother and toddler project

“…The approach adopted was the system-based problem solving McMaster model (Epstein and Bishop, 1981 ;Goodyer et al, 1982). Readers unfamiliar with the model are referred to these sources.…”