Implementation of a Community‐based Family‐centered Program in Portugal: A Multiple Case Study Evaluation

Abstract

Family‐centered, community‐based programs are particularly suited to support families with at‐risk children or maltreated children and achieve family preservation or reunification. In these child protection and child welfare cases, assessment is of great importance to inform decision making. But the implementation of services to support the families change and its evaluation in real settings is not without challenges. The Integrated Family Assessment and Intervention Model (IFAIM) was designed to conduct assessment and intervention with multichallenged families with at‐risk or maltreated children and support the activities of the child protection system. In this article, we describe a pragmatic, focused on improvement, action research multicase study of the process and outcome of IFAIM's first implementation. Multiple factors affected implementation, namely, factors related with the teams, the organizations, and the communities. An improved model of implementation based on the evaluation results is proposed.

“Family Education and Support” program for families at psychosocial risk: The role of implementation process

“…Nonetheless, variability was observed concerning group size, intensity and dosage. This variability in implementation has been previously observed elsewhere (De Melo & Alarcao, 2012;Durlak & DuPre, 2008), and can be explained by the adaptability of the FAF. This enables taking into account the specific characteristics of each group and accomplishing ecologic validity while ensuring core components (Herrera et al, 2007;Máiquez et al, 2015), which remains a challenge for parenting programs (Orte, Amer, Pascual, & Vaqué, 2014).…”

“…Organizational support is one of the most important components in determining whether a program is successful or not (De Melo & Alarcao, 2012). First, technical support and adequate setting and material conditions are needed to guarantee implementation success .…”

Mechanisms That Promote and Support Family Preservation for Children at the Edge of Care: A Realist Synthesis

“…In taking a whole family approach, involving all members of the family, workers are seen as offering families respectful, empowering, and strength-based support based on their individual needs (de Melo & Alarcao, 2012). Building and promoting family resilience to better cope with needs is also prioritised through the development of a whole family approach to methods aimed at resolving conflicts and development of skills to improve interactions within the family (Mitchell, 2020; Smith, 1995; Thomas et al, 2005).…”

Building Future Communities: Strengthening Relational Bonds for a Positive Future

“…The context for this study is the third wave of the implementation of a community-based family assessment and intervention program designed for multichallenged families, with at-risk or maltreated children ([Blinded for review], Melo, 2011Melo, , 2012. Our most encompassing goal was to promote the well-being and positive development of the children and families.…”