A Strengths Based Approach to - Northern California Training 优势为基础的方法对加利福尼亚北部的训练.pdf

A Strengths Based Approach to Working with Youth and Families: A Review of Research Prepared by The University of California, Davis, Extension The Center for Human Services Funded by the California Department of Social Services April 2009 The Center for Human Services UC Davis, Extension, University of California 1632 Da Vinci Court, Davis, CA 95616 Phone: (530) 757-8643 Fax: (530) 752-6910 Northern California Training Academy, The Center for Human Services A Strengths-Based Approach to Working with Youth and Families: A Review of Research, April, 2009 2 A Strength-Based Approach to Working with Youth and Families: A Review of Research The field of mental health and social services has a long history of focusing on children’s deficits, problem behaviors, and pathologies. Within the last decade researchers and practitioners within the fields of education, mental health, psychology, social work, and child welfare have begun to question the deficit-based approach and move toward a more holistic model of development (Trout, Ryan, La Vigne, Epstein, 2003). Rather than focusing on individual and family weaknesses or deficits, strength-based practitioners collaborate with families and children to discover individual and family functioning and strengths (Laursen, 2000). At the foundation of the strength-based approach is the belief that children and families have unique talents, skills, and life events, in addition to specific unmet needs (Olson, Whitebeck, Robinson, 1991 as cited in Epstein, 1999). While there are a variety of programs that utilize a strength-based approach, t