In a randomized clinical trial, multisystemic family preservation was shown to

The convergent validity of the two most frequently used methods for assessing violent offending in juveniles (i.e., self-reports and arrests) was evaluated. Participants were 87 serious juvenile offenders and their maternal figures, primarily from disadvantaged families. Validation measures tapped established behavioral, family, and peer correlates of delinquency. Results failed to support the ability of either arrests for violent crimes or self-reported violent offenses to index violent criminal behavior accurately. Several methodological features of the study support our hypothesis that the findings were not spurious. Procedural and conceptual implications of the findings are discussed.

Even though growth relationships include traditional aspects of academic mentoring, without emphasizing personal development, professional growth is incomplete. Most African American faculty are overloaded with teaching, research, and advising responsibilities and, therefore, are unable to adequately mentor African American graduate students without jeopardizing their careers. Non-African Americans can provide adequate mentoring to African American students; however, because of the lack of a common cultural context, obstacles exist in cross-cultural mentoring relationships. By portraying the growth relationships established between an elder and 2 young professionals, this study illustrates how the involvement of non-academic affiliated African American professionals with African American graduate students is beneficial and indeed essential in the students' academic and personal development.

This article presents an active, brief, problem-oriented therapuetic model for working with nontraditional clients. An effort is made to view the potential client in terms of his/her own environment and expressed problem area(s). Using a limited number of contacts, the therapeutic emphasis is on aiding the client to more effectively interact with his or her environment through the acquisition of additional skills and/or bodies of knowledge.

The increase in the number of serious offenses by adolescents, particularly among minority populations, has drawn attention to these difficult-to-treat youths. This article provides preliminary findings from the Diffusion of Multisystemic Family Preservation (MFP) Services Project, which conducted work with rural African-American and White families who have a chronic or violent adolescent offender at imminent risk for incarceration. Analyses assessed the impact of multisystemic therapy on family functioning (parental monitoring, family communications, family structure, etc.) and on the problem behavior of the delinquent adolescent (conduct problems, aggression, and criminal activity). In general, the MFP group demonstrated improvements in amount of problem behavior and mother psychological distress, and in aspects of family functioning following treatment. These results generally replicate the previous successes that MFP has shown in the treatment of samples of serious juvenile offenders in urban areas.