The first edition was essential for any professional attempting to understand the family life cycle, family interactions and other environmental factors affecting at-risk and special-needs students. Now, every chapter in this enlarged second edition has been extensively updated to reflect recent developments. The scope of the book has been expanded to go beyond students with disabilities to include students with any kind of special need and their families as well as their social networks. Of special note is the new chapter on resilient youth and the community as a resource.

Special Features

• Increased attention on diversity and special populations, including families of divorce and remarriage and abusive or addictive families
• Specific strategies for working with these children and their families
• Concrete exercises and practical interventions, including suggestions for interventions within the school system
• Entire section devoted to case studies
• New appendices - including one devoted exclusively to books for children and youth
• Expanded resource lists include web sites and e-mail addresses

Contents

Part One: Description of Family Systems

1. Introduction
2. Family Life Cycle
3. Family Interaction Patterns
4. Historical Factors

Part Two: At-Risk, Special-Needs, and Resilient Children

5. At-Risk Students and Environmental Factors
6. At-Risk Students from Nontraditional Families
7. At-Risk Students from Dysfunctional Families
8. Special-Needs Students from Dysfunctional Family Systems
9. Resiliency and the Village

Part Three: Applications of Family Systems

10. Team Functioning and Family Involvement
11. Family Conferences and Teacher-Student Support Teams
12. Family Involvement and Planning for FFIs and IEPs
13. Classroom and Group Extension of Family Systems Concepts
14. Strengthening the Possibilities for a Systems Paradigm

Part Four: Family Systems Case Study, Appendices, References, and Index

15.Case Study

536 pages
2000/paperback/ISBN 0-89108-265-4
$60.00