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Are practitioners incorporating a strengths‐focused approach when working with multi‐problem poor families?
Author(s) -
Sousa Liliana,
Ribeiro Cláudia,
Rodrigues Sofia
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
journal of community and applied social psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.042
H-Index - 63
eISSN - 1099-1298
pISSN - 1052-9284
DOI - 10.1002/casp.875
Subject(s) - strengths and weaknesses , dysfunctional family , relevance (law) , ambiguity , psychology , intervention (counseling) , psychological intervention , applied psychology , management science , social psychology , psychotherapist , computer science , psychiatry , political science , law , programming language , economics
Multi‐problem poor families have been characterized as dysfunctional and chaotic, and problem‐centred interventions have been developed. However, the activation of families' strengths has shown itself to be an important tool for intervention, hence the relevance of promoting the incorporation of a strengths‐focused approach. So, it becomes important to determine to what extent practitioners are thinking of incorporating a strengths‐focused approach when working with these families. To achieve this goal, a semi‐structured interview was administered to 23 practitioners. The findings suggest that practitioners are able to identify strengths but do not think in a strengths‐focused way. The main obstacles are: ambiguity in the definition of strengths, a focus on problems, lack of confidence in the possibility of improvement in the lives of families. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.