Creating Lasting Family Connections (CLFC)

• Refusal skills
• Bonding with mother and father
• Honest communication
• Participation in family rule setting
• Bonding with community
• Social Skills

• Appropriate parental substance use knowledge and beliefs
• Appropriate parental substance using behavior
• Family management skills (including family meetings)
• Bonding with youth
• Involvement of youth in family rule setting (both substance related and not)
• Help-seeking for family and personal problems

• Family stability, harmony, cohesiveness, and positive communication
• Family recreational and community activities

• Youth and parent perceptions of community support
• Access to health and social services
• Community empowerment
• Responsiveness and flexibility of social service provision
• Community service

• School bonding by youth
• School attendance
• Positive school climate

1. Purchasing the curriculum and providing the Creating Lasting Family Connections Implementation Training for Staff
2. Identifying, assessing, selecting, and recruiting the community system(s) that will serve as the focal point of the program.
3. Creating, orientating, and training a small cadre of community volunteers to advocate for youth and their families in high-risk environments, and recruiting and helping retain those families in the program.
4. Recruiting youth and families in high-risk environments who are willing to participate in the program.
5. Administering six highly interactive training modules, three each to both parents and youth, separately (i.e., one module on substance use issues, a second on personal and family responsibilities, and a third on communication and refusal skills).
6. Each of the parent training modules ordinarily consists of 5 or 6 sessions, often provided with a single 2½-hour session per week. Each of the youth training modules consists of about 5 or 6 sessions, also often provided with a single 1½-hour session per week. The optional parent and youth combined Getting Real communications training usually requires an additional two or three meetings (with each meeting lasting 2 to 2½ hours).
7. Providing early intervention services and follow-up case management services to connect families to community resources and appropriate alternative activities when necessary.

We have found the trainings to be most effective when parents and youth are engaged in all six training modules consecutively and simultaneously. The trainers may present the modules in any order desired, but when implementing the modules with both parents and youth participants, it is important to pair the matching parent and youth modules.

CLFC is designed for youth 9 to 17 years old and their families. The populations that participated in the evaluations were primarily African American, Caucasian, or of mixed ethnicity; were 11-15 years of age; and lived in rural, suburban, or urban settings. The program has been implemented in 50 states and a number of foreign countries with a variety of populations, including African American, Hispanic, Asian and Native Americans. CLFC has been successfully implemented in schools, faith communities, recreation centers, community settings, juvenile justice facilities, and other settings.

For a high fidelity replication of CLFC, at least two part-time facilitators are needed for each of the parent and youth modules. After the recruitment phase, these four part-time facilitators can work with up to 30 families, 1 day per week, 4 hours per day, for the duration of the 18-20 week program. A minimum of two facilitators for each group is strongly recommended because a team approach significantly enhances the group learning experience and is likely to increase the participants’ positive response to the program.

• 5 to 10 days of training by the developer
• Community mobilization activities
• Identification and recruitment of parents and youth
• While training and technical assistance are not required, training is highly recommended. Training is offered both regionally and on site. Potential trainers are encouraged to complete a readiness assessment to determine the extent of training they may need. Potential trainers who demonstrate adequate experience should attend our 5-day training course. Inexperienced potential trainers should attend our 10-day training course. Customized onsite technical assistance and training is available at a cost of from $500 to $1,500 per day (plus travel and per diem), depending on the specific consultant selected, the number of consultants needed and the total number of days requested at your site. Training in the complete CLFC curriculum package (which includes 6 separate curriculums and community mobilization) may range in price from $3,000 to $7,500 depending on a number of site specific variables. Training is available in a variety of formats on any combination of individual CLFC modules desired. Limited technical assistance including grant writing assistance is available FREE. For more information about program materials or training, visit our products page.

This program was rigorously evaluated under the direction of Dr. Knowlton Johnson, of Community Systems Research Division of the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation (an independent party), using a true experimental design, in that the youth were randomly assigned to either a program or a comparison group. The evaluation also used three repeated measures over a 1-year period, which allowed the measurement of both short-term and sustained gains. Another strength of the evaluation was that it examined moderating effects of resiliency factors in multiple domains, which “increases the probability of detecting statistically significant results, which facilitates a more accurate understanding of the effects” of the program.

• Use of community services by families with personal/family problems
• Action taken based on the service contact
• Parents’ and youths’ perceived helpfulness of the action taken

• Increased parents’ AOD knowledge and beliefs
• Increased youth involvement in setting AOD use rules

• Increased family communication (parent report)
• Increased bonding with mother (youth report)

The following were statistically significant moderating effects of family and youth resilience factors on youth AOD use found through the CLC evaluation:

Onset of AOD use was delayed among program group youth for 1 year (sustained gain) as parents:

(1) increased AOD knowledge and beliefs,
(2) decreased family conflict (youth report)
(3) increased likelihood of punishing youth (i.e. negative consequences) for AOD use

Use of alcohol was reduced in the short term as parents:

(1) increased AOD knowledge and beliefs
(2) decreased their quantity of smoking tobacco products
(3) decreased their likelihood of “punishing” youth (versus appropriate consequences) for misconduct

This program is currently in use in almost all 50 states across the nation in schools, recreation centers, health centers, churches, community centers, juvenile justice facilities, and other service sites. Out of popular demand the entire CLFC curriculum package is now available in Spanish.

Awards and Recognition