Questions We Can Help You To Answer

Paper instructions:

Question: Prevention Interventions Can Be Therapeutic
It has been said that while prevention programs (for example, non-clinical, psycho-educational activities) are not therapy, they may be therapeutic for a participant. Interpret what this observation means, giving examples from the unit readings.

(you must use at least two refrernces from the readings to support your answer)

unit reading:Prevention and Advocacy
INTRODUCTION
Whether social science professionals work in clinical or non-clinical settings, the mission of the organization is often concerned with the wellbeing of families. In this course, you have explored families from a systems perspective and in a social context. In this unit, you will explore efforts of researchers, professional organizations, and practitioners working in the field to define, develop, deliver, and evaluate prevention and advocacy services focused on families and family members.

Myers-Walls, Ballard, Darling and Myers-Bowman (2011) have summarized the work of those professionals involved in family life education to further understand what professional services and activities fall within the boundaries of family life education, distinguishing it from family therapy and family case management. The Advanced Studies in Human Behavior program prepares professionals for a variety of non-clinical leadership roles, but is also well suited to enhancing the leadership roles of those with clinical backgrounds. Differentiating family prevention and advocacy services from family therapy is essential, and it must not be assumed that there is a hierarchical relationship in the skills needed for prevention and advocacy work, with therapy professionals being at the top of the ladder, possessing all the skills needed for various types of psycho-educational, prevention, and advocacy work. This is not the case!

Although Doherty's 1995 model may have made it appear so in its simplicity of five levels, Doherty's work made it clear that not only are there different competencies involved, but also those receiving services have different expectations—the contract between the professional and those he or she is serving is such that ethical boundary issues must be conscientiously addressed. This was discussed in Unit 1 as you explored ethics, and is revisited here as you explore examples of prevention and advocacy in the work of Early Head Start (Brophy-Herb, et al., 2009) and how family education practitioners approach working with couples (Duncan, Childs & Larson, 2010; Hawkins, Carroll, Doherty & Willoughby, 2004) and stepfamilies (Gelatt, Adler-Baeder & Seeley, 2010).

A list of selected Web sites of prevention and advocacy organizations serving children, youth, and families that offer research-based resources developed by credentialed experts is given in this unit's studies.

At the end of this unit, your Critique of Research Methodology and Recommendations assignment will be due. This paper should represent the Scholarly Research Critique and Research Recommendations portion of your final project assignment, and it introduces a scholarly skill you will need for developing a dissertation. Critiquing research methodology is part of the literature review (Chapter 2) in a dissertation. Be sure to refer to the document, Guidelines for Critique of Research Reports for helpful tips. "Recommendations for future research" is one of the sections you will develop within Chapter 5 of your own dissertation one day soon. The recommendations for future research presented by researchers who have gone before you can help substantiate the need for your proposed research.

References
Brophy-Herb, H. E., Horodynski, M., Dupuis, S. B., London Bocknek, E., Schiffman, R., Onaga, E., ... Thomas, S. (2009). Early emotional development in infants and toddlers: Perspectives of Early Head Start staff and parents. Infant Mental Health Journal, 30(3), 203–222.

Doherty, W. J. (1995). Boundaries between parent and family education and family therapy. Family Relations, 44(4), 353–358.

Duncan, S. F., Childs, G. R., & Larson, J. H. (2010). Perceived helpfulness of four different types of marriage preparation interventions. Family Relations, 59(5), 623–636.