American Psychological Association selects FFT Partners for new family therapy book

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The American Psychological Association recently signed a contract for the newest book about Functional Family Therapy.

The new book, titled “Functional Family Therapy: An evolving evidence-based treatment for contemporary family issues,” is authored by Dr. Thomas L. Sexton, and licensed clinical social workers Astrid van Dam and Marta Anderson.

Sexton is a board-certified family psychologist and is one of the model developers of Functional Family Therapy, or FFT. He earned his doctorate in psychology from Florida State University and is an emeritus professor of psychology at Indiana University Bloomington. His publications on FFT are among the most widely cited in the field.

Sexton works alongside van Dam and Anderson at FFT Partners, a leading organization FFT that helps community agencies train and supervise therapists to effectively implement the program.

FFT is a type of prevention and intervention program aimed at youths who are at high risk for delinquency, violence, substance use or other behavioral problems.

FFT is one of the early generations of family therapy models and contributed to the early theoretical ideas and research, helping establish family therapy as a mainstream treatment approach.

FFT is a constantly evolving method that affords therapists the creativity to match the model to the unique features of a family. The latitude is possible through systems such as FFT Partners’ “Care 4 Clinical Feedback System,” which allows therapists track the impact, progress, and symptom levels of youth and families and receive real time feedback each week.

In the 1990’s through the 2000s, FFT became an “evidence-based” treatment and was at the center at the beginning of the evidence-based practice movement that revolutionized Juvenile Justice treatment.

Twenty years later, with the implementation of the new Family First Prevention Service Act (FFPSA), evidence-based practices such as FFT now have the potential to similarly revolutionize interventions used in the child welfare arena, including preventing abuse and treating youth in foster care.

FFT is one of the first models identified and supported by the Family First Evidence-based Clearing House and has been approved for Title IV E funding — the funding channel for the federal foster care program.