Social workers have long recognized that when the family is viewed as the “client” rather than focusing only on the child, parents need to feel included and essential to aspects treatment. Child and youth problem behaviors serve a function with the family system and are initiated and maintained by maladaptive interpersonal processes. Children who are socially competent and prosocial in their behavior have parents who use exemplary parenting practices, such as offering regular amounts of praise, providing adequate supervision, maintaining a safe home environment, using nonviolent discipline techniques, and providing consistency through routines and supportive interactions with their children. Children of effective parents experience family cohesion, warmth, harmony, and the absence of neglect in their families.

This chapter identifies excellent programs to improve practices and child, youth, and family functioning. However, to move forward in the field, researchers and practitioners need to move away from treating problems and more toward preventing problems. To address problem behaviors, more attention needs to be placed on the lack of support in the environments of children and youth, specifically the lack of support in families, schools, communities, and in the socio-political context. Policies need to be directed to improving the environments of children and youth rather than on changing individual characteristics or behaviors. In this way, research can inform policy and the involvement of parents, policy makers, and politicians can demonstrate how essential it is to have a rationale for multiple problem prevention programs because at-risk children and youth are at risk for multiple negative outcomes because of their dysfunctional and stressed environments. There is now sufficient knowledge about the characteristics of effective programs for researchers and practitioners to support policies that encourage multicomponent, coordinated preventive interventions.