A retrospective narrative review of filial therapy as a school-based mental health intervention.

Abstract

Filial therapy is a mental health intervention for children originally designed to address mental health clinician shortages by leveraging the time and skills of the clinician to resource the people who spend the most time with the child, rather than being directly involved in the child's treatment. The current mental health climate in many parts of the world is not dissimilar to the context in which the original filial therapy model was developed, in that there is a disparity between a demanding problem and a shortage in supply of specialist services. There remains a need in school settings for effective interventions to address social, emotional and behavioral problems in children and there is a gap in the degree of reporting on the impact of filial therapy in school settings despite a body of literature supporting the efficacy of the intervention more broadly. This retrospective narrative literature review provides a summary of current and past research publications about filial therapy as a school-based intervention and its effect on student functioning. A thorough search of the literature resulted in an initial 34 publications, 23 of which remained following application of the exclusion criteria. In this article, we adopted the IMRaD (Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion) approach to reviewing the literature with reference to Ferrari's (2015) recommended framework for narrative reviews. Overall support for the use of school-based filial therapy interventions was determined given their positive influence on children's functional outcomes.

Meeting the Mental Health and Behavioral Needs of Children and Youth in Rural Foster Care: The Role of Schools

“…Mental health screenings and referrals and telemental health require a higher level of commitment through providing trained staff, a designated private space, and technology (Pincus et al, 2020;Stephan et al, 2016). Finally, EBTs are the most difficult to implement due to the need for trained staff and intensive services; however, research indicates their efficacy for students who have experienced significant trauma, a common factor for children and youth in foster care (Cooper et al, 2020;Perryman et al, 2020;Sumi et al, 2021). Research examining the relative impact of each intervention for children in rural foster care settings is a necessary next step to inform schools about how to focus their resources best.…”

“…While not specific to the rural setting, the EBTs we suggest recently demonstrated positive outcomes when offered within schools. Such outcomes include improved academic performance for elementary students with adjustment disorders (Child-Centered Play Therapy; Perryman et al, 2020) and middle school students (TF-CBT Group Therapy; Sumi et al, 2021); reduction of poor mental health symptoms across various age groups using Filial Therapy (Cooper et al, 2020), Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (Stewart et al, 2021), and TF-CBT Group Therapy (Sumi et al, 2021); and improved social outcomes among middle-school students using Theraplay (Weaver et al, 2021). Furthermore, one study examining the efficacy of CBT provided this therapy via telemental health, indicating the possibility of this EBT as remotely deliverable by trained therapists if a trained provider is unavailable at the school (Stewart et al, 2021).…”

Teacher professional development training: Utilizing child-centered play therapy skills in the classroom.

“…M. Smith & Landreth, 2004). Cooper et al (2020) offered a retrospective narrative review of research on school-based filial therapy (SBFT) as a mental health intervention. Assessing 23 published studies, the researchers concluded that SBFT is an efficacious treatment for improving children's mental health symptoms in school settings (Cooper et al, 2020).…”

“…Cooper et al (2020) offered a retrospective narrative review of research on school-based filial therapy (SBFT) as a mental health intervention. Assessing 23 published studies, the researchers concluded that SBFT is an efficacious treatment for improving children's mental health symptoms in school settings (Cooper et al, 2020). Of the 93 controlled-outcome CCPT studies included in Bratton et al's (2005) meta-analysis, 26 measured filial therapy/CPRT effects with teachers, mentors, or other paraprofessionals in school settings.…”

Occupational Therapy Theory and School-Based Filial Therapy: Intervention Rationale and Formulation

“…It is one of many adaptations of filial therapy, a parent-child play therapy model established in the 1960s (Guerney, 1964; Guerney, 2000). Broadly, filial therapy programs have received substantial support for addressing problems associated with occupational engagement and participation in the school setting (e.g., Cooper et al, 2020a). Specifically, SBFT has been found to have positive outcomes for children's behaviour and school attendance (Cooper et al, 2020b).…”