Family Connect Assessment™
Parents know they cannot “go away” themselves to treatment, like their child. However, so many desire to change. Their commitment to do whatever is necessary for the health of their family is front and center, yet how to and where to seek the proper help often remain unanswered. Additionally, parents are often exhausted from the chaotic world in which they have been living. Though the cycle of distress needs to be disrupted, it is often pushed to the side. Just like the need to save the life of their child, saving the life of the family is no different. However, the “work” back home, while their child is away, must get done. Committing the time, finding the best resources, reducing the negative emotional and relational impacts, repairing the most important relationships, re-establishing a productive family structure and rebalancing the parenting within the family system cannot happen magically. So our parents must really decide how healthy (or not) do they want their family system to be when their child returns home?
Helping heal the family, while helping the child heal is like nourishing a plant with both good soil and water; without one, the growth will be temporary or even thwarted. However, with both along with adding other nutrients and planning for all the right conditions, the outcome is highly likely to be positive, maybe even extraordinary…the plant thriving and showing radiant sustenance. Though some parents believe just loving the child is the answer to improving their family conditions or that the treatment program in and of itself will somehow “fix” all things, including their son or daughter. Again, just like the plant, love alone will not be sustainable; nor will a recipe that sits idle with its list of ingredients and instructions. The whole process must combine, fuse…and all pieces must intersect.
So in an effort to help our clients beyond TAG’s primary services, a greater emphasis on the family is also a part of the unique consulting services offered exclusively to our TAG parents. A Comprehensive Family Assessment, focusing on understanding one’s family structure, the relationships within, the quality of relational connectedness, the individual and collective parenting styles and the differing aspects of the family system will be administered. Through the use of multiple measurement tools, the scope and depth of each TAG family can be better understood and as a result, TAG Counseling will be able to provide a thorough breakout of all the salient information, assess how it all fits together and make specific recommendations that integrate all the findings and needs of each individual family. The specific recommendations will span the range of local specialized therapy to parent coaching to individual, couple and/or family “intensives”. However, much like the individualized recommendations made for their child, the same approach will apply to the family. The goals being to provide the best course of direction, to affect a positive trajectory of the family system and its members and to realize a healthier functioning and more securely attached family unit upon their child’s return from treatment.
Family Connect Assessment™ consists of the following:
Family Connect Assessment™
Family History
Family Inter-generational Structure
Multi-dimensional family testing/assessment instruments
Summary of results and recommendations
Through Family Connect Assessment™, we are able to assess the quality of the family relationships and each family unit’s distress points, manifested wounds and areas of strength. Understanding the unique interworkings of each TAG family, will allow this process of parallel change to best be facilitated, both for the child away in treatment as well as for the family who is still at home. Parents just have to ask themselves, what would be keeping us from creating the healthiest family system for themselves, for their marriage, for their children and for generations to come? Let us help you take that journey…
“Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do.”
Johann Wolfgang VonGoethe