Family Support

Family Support Programs are community-based services that help to promote the well-being of children and families as well as increase the strength and stability of families.  The services can be for youth and/or parents, and can occur within the home or at community locations.  There are 4 sub-types of family support programs: Parenting Class, Advocacy, Social Workers, and Family Support.

Parenting classes are a chance for parents to actively acquire parenting skills through sessions that focus on improving parenting of and communication with their children.  Parents are taught how to engage in skill building, problem solving, and how to model types of mechanisms in an effort to reduce adverse childhood outcomes. 

Advocacy Programs help guide youth and/or their families through the juvenile justice system, explaining the process and importance of each hearing, outcome, or decision.  Advocates may meet with youth and families at their home prior to court appearances to discuss the purpose of the hearing or what the consequences of not appearing in court may be.  Advocates can also accompany youth and families to the proceedings.

Social Workers assist youth with increasing their capacity for problem solving and coping, and help them obtain needed resources as well as facilitate interactions between youth and their environment. They seek to improve the youth’s quality of wellbeing through research directed therapeutic methods.

The sub-type for Family Support covers the programs that are in the community helping families with a variety of needs that may not fit into the other 3 categories.  Family Support workers can help families work out communication issues, resolve school attendance problems, locate resources within the community to help the families meet the needs of all family members, or many other services that can be individualized for the youth and/or family’s needs.

evaluating family support programs

As part of our yearly evaluations for Community-based Juvenile Services Aid funded programs in fiscal year 2025, the JJI, in partnership with the NCC, developed evaluation matrices to categorize important outcomes for each program type evaluated. The following categories describe the important program outcome indicators for family support programs. These categories can be used to assess the standing of a program in terms of whether it is successfully applying best practices and meeting expectations or common goals for such programs.

Click here for the Family Support Evaluation Matrix PDF

evaluation framework

Any program assessment must start by reviewing what data is available on processes and outcomes. Incomplete data or small sample sizes (i.e. few client cases) increase the risk of error in analysis. Shreffler and Huecker (2023) describe what Type I and II errors are – with high risks for error we might fail to identify a positive impact that’s occurring or falsely state the program was effective when it wasn’t. Small sample sizes run the risk of an outlier (one or two cases with unique, or very low/high values in an outcome) skewing the results.

A major goal of the Community-based Juvenile Services Aid (CBA) and Juveniles Services Commission Grant (JS) funding is to provide community-based services for juveniles who come in contact with the juvenile justice system and prevent youth from moving deeper into the system. CBA/JS funded programs are evaluated on how effective they are at preventing future system involvement (FSI) after youth are discharged from the program. FSI is evaluated in two ways – 1) comparing FSI between successful cases and unsuccessful cases and 2) overall FSI for all youth served. Evaluating these metrics gives a program the overall picture of FSI for the youth they come into contact with and helps programs more deeply understand how successful completion or discharge from their program impacts FSI of youth.

The following is a brief review of some of the existing literature related to family support programs to further explain the importance of evaluating family support outcomes in rating program effectiveness.

Brief literature review

Problematic youth behavior and delinquency is shaped not by individual youth risk factors (e.g., impulsivity, callousness), but also by the broader family and social environments in which youth develop. There are several family-level factors that are consistently shown to be related to increased risk of delinquency, including poor parenting practices, low family attachment, unhealthy communication patterns, and experiences of family conflict, abuse, and/or violence (Aazami et al., 2023; Gault-Sherman, 2012; Hinton et al., 2003; Hoeve et al., 2012). In an examination of development predictors of juvenile offending, Basto-Pereira and Farrington (2022) found that family/parental factors were the strongest predictors of general offending behavior in youth. This demonstrates the importance of family-focused prevention and intervention services in reducing juvenile delinquency and system involvement.

Family-focused interventions aim to strengthen family functioning, improve relationships, and build parents’ skills to support positive youth development. Some existing approaches to address familial risk factors include parental training and education programs (i.e., focused on teaching skills related to effective parenting, such as appropriate discipline, supervision, and rules/expectations), family therapy (i.e., focused on improving youth/parent communication and family dynamics), and integrated, wraparound services (i.e., focused on building a network of supports and services for families to address multi-level concerns).

Evidence supports the effectiveness of these family-centered models in reducing youth antisocial behavior and delinquency. Four evidence-based family therapy approaches Multisystemic Therapy (MST), Functional Family Therapy (FFT), Brief Strategic Family Therapy (BSFT), and Multidimensional Family Therapy (MDFT) have demonstrated reductions in youth offending and system involvement. These models share a focus on engaging families as partners, addressing contextual risk factors, and reinforcing positive family functioning. Baldwin and colleagues (2012) found that these family therapy approaches showed slight benefits compared to individual psychotherapy and other intervention types (e.g., psychoeducation, group therapy). Parent training interventions have also shown strong effects. For example, Beelmann and colleagues (2023) found that parent training programs improve parenting practices, strengthen family relationships, and reduce youth behavioral problems. Similarly, Fagan and Benedini (2016) reported that family-focused prevention programs that improve supervision, discipline, and parent–child communication are linked to reductions in antisocial behavior and delinquency. It is also important to note that programs and interventions addressing risk factors at multiple levels are most effective at reducing delinquency (Hinton et al., 2003). Overall, the evidence suggests that when families are equipped with the skills and support, they need, the risks associated with delinquency and reoffending decline substantially.

For additional resources or to access articles referenced above, contact the JJI at unojji@unomaha.edu.

Family Support Program Evaluation Webinar 3/26/25

additional resources

jcms guides

JCMS Screen Definitions

JCMS User Guide

*You can find more JCMS training materials and videos on the Trainings & Tools page.

The Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services published a guidebook for families that are navigating the state’s Child and Family Service system.

The OJJDP publishes literature reviews on what works for juvenile delinquency prevention and intervention, including family-related programs.

Specifically, they’ve published literature reviews describing and reviewing the evidence of parent training (2010) and family therapy (2014).

The Center for the Study of Social Policy utilize the Strengthening Families and Protective Factors framework in their work with families.

Their website includes information, tools, and resources pertaining to this framework.