Family Therapy Research

The Family Therapy Program is at the forefront of innovative family psychotherapy research. Our project, headed by Dr. Jacqueline Sparks, incorporates a real-time data collection process of client perspectives to inform clinical practice. Student therapists collect, score, and review brief, valid measures (PDF) of client views of progress and the therapy relationship at each session. These instruments allow entire families, including children, to fully participate and have a voice in the clinic's services. At the same time, students get immediate feedback from clients, providing invaluable learning and an opportunity to help clients achieve the best outcome. Our goal is to enhance therapist flexibility, evaluate outcome, and improve overall effectiveness.

We have recently integrated the (ASIST), software system, (Administration, Scoring, Interpretation, and Data Storage Tool) to enhance this outcomes-focused process. Students input clients' ratings of progress and therapeutic alliance collected at each session. The sofware generates expected trajectories and identifies at-risk cases, providing trainees and supervisors real-time data to adjust the direction of treatment. This system offers greater precision and reliability, taking us a step further in seamlessly integrating outcome as a real tool for training and improving effectiveness. Since beginning ASIST, the Family Therapy Clinic is rapidly developing a systemized database that provides students and faculty the ability to research a range of clinical areas, including the mediators and moderators of outcome and the complex processes of multi-person, systemic practice.

The Family Therapy Program's outcome initiative coincides with a University-wide initiative to evaluate overall program outcomes. In addition, collecting and monitoring outcome using client feedback teaches new therapists core competencies outlined by the American Associaton of Marriage and Family Therapy - specifically, the importance of soliciting and using client feedback throughout therapy to evaluate treatment outcomes as treatment progresses and to recongnize when treatment goals and plans require modification.

Since beginning our outcome project, we have been invited to present our system regionally, nationally, and internationally. The Family Therapy Program at URI is rapidly gaining recognition as one of only a handful of clinical training programs across the globe that can claim to train not only competent, but effective, clinicians.