Community-family network therapy in a rural setting.

A model of family intervention with extended family members and significant community agency people is presented in an attempt to deal with the total social network surrounding a seriously dysfunctional family. They describe how this approach adapts itself well to a rural setting and seems to encompass most if not all of the significant helping systems in the family social sphere. The roles of the various team members are carefully outlined and the process of the therapeutic meeting is described. The authors believe that this approach has a facilitative effect to increase the functionality of already existing natural social systems on which the families are already quite dependent, but which prior to the network sessions were largely nonfunctional. The effect of all of this is to reduce drastically the amount of wasted time, energy, and effort that occurs when all the significant persons and agencies in the psychosocial sphere of a family are not working together in a coordinated manner.