HOMEBUILDERS - Detailed Report

• Engagement: Use a collaborative and collegial approach to engage and motivate families.
• Assessment and Goal Setting: Use client-directed assessment across life domains, ongoing safety assessment and planning, domestic violence assessment, suicide assessment, and crisis planning.
• Behavior Change: Use cognitive and behavioral research-based practices and behavioral interventions.
• Skills Development: Teach parents and children a wide variety of “life skills.” Use “teaching interaction” process including practice, feedback, and homework.
• Concrete Services: Provide and/or help the family access concrete goods and services that are directly related to achieving the family’s goals, while teaching them to meet these needs on their own.
• Community Coordination and Interactions: Coordinate, collaborate, and advocate with state, local, public, and community services and systems affecting the family, while teaching clients to advocate and access support for themselves.
  
• Immediate Response To Referral: Accept referrals 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Therapist and back- up are available 24-hours a day, 7 days a week.
• Service Provided in the Natural Environment: Provide services in the families’ homes and community.
• Caseload Size: Carry caseloads of two families at a time on average, but can be as high as five.
• Flexibility and Responsiveness: Tailor services to each family’s needs, strengths, lifestyle, and culture.

Fraser, M.W., Walton, E., Lewis, R.E., Pecora, P.J., & Walton, W.K. (1996). An experiment in family reunification: Correlates of outcomes at one-year follow-up. Children and Youth Services Review, 18(4/5), 335-361.

Type of Study: Randomized controlled trial
Number of participants: 110Population:

Age Range: 1 to 17 years with an average of 10.8
Race/Ethnicity: Not given
Status (e.g., foster care, CW) Children in foster care

Location/Institution: Utah
Summary: (To include comparison groups, outcomes, measures, notable limitations) Families were randomly assigned to receive experimental family reunification services or to a routine services control group. Families in the intervention group received a program delivered by experienced child welfare worker with advanced degrees. The program was directed at building collaborative relationships with parents, strengthening communication, problem-solving and parenting skills, addressing concrete needs (e.g., food, shelter, employment), and providing in-home support when the family was reunified. Significantly more children in the treatment group returned to their families within the 90-day treatment program than did control group children (96.5% versus 32.1%) (A further 20.8% of children in the control group returned during the 1-year follow-up). Treatment group children also returned in a shorter amount of time than did control children (20.7 versus 44.6 days on average). Children who went through the treatment program spent more time in their own home than did control group children during the 6-month (142 days versus 68 days) and 12-month follow-up (151 days versus 83 days) periods. At the end of the 15-month study period, 70% of children who were in the program remained home, as compared to 47% of children in the control group.
Length of post-intervention follow-up: 1 year

Walton, E. (1998). In-home family focused reunification: A six-year follow-up of a successful experiment. Social Work Research, 22(4), 205-214.

Type of Study: Randomized controlled trial
Number of participants: 120 children
Population:

Age Range: 6.4 to 23.9 years at 6 year follow-up
Race/Ethnicity: 82.7% white
Status (e.g., foster care, CW): Children and young adults currently or formerly in foster care.

Location/Institution: Utah
Summary: (To include comparison groups, outcomes, measures, notable limitations) Note: This study uses sample from Fraser, et al. (1996), with the addition of 10 young adults who turned 18 during the intervention in the 1996 study. The follow-up examined placement and welfare service histories for children included in the original trial. The authors compared the intervention group to the control group on total days of public agency involvement during the 6 years, total number of referrals to the Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS), public agency involvement after DCFS case closure, and reason for discontinuing services. Groups did not differ on days of DCFS involvement and number of referrals. Groups were also equal in the extent to which they received extensive involvement with services, defined as placement in a foster home, corrections facility, or facility of the Department of Mental Retardation. Experimental families received more services overall, which authors attribute as possibly being a result of the intervention’s focus on networking families with services. Finally, a greater number of intervention families were classified as having discontinued services due to the family situation being stabilized.
Length of post-intervention follow-up: 6 years from beginning of intervention.

Kinney, J.M., Haapala, D.A., & Booth, C. (2004). Keeping families together: THE HOMEBUILDERS® MODEL. New Brunswick, New Jersey. Aldine Transaction.

Wood, S., Baron, K. & Schroeder, C. (1988). In-home treatment of abusive families: Cost and placement at one year. Psychotherapy, 25(3), 409-414.