ABSTRACT
This chapter explores three types of studies that can be used to break down the effects of complex interventions: case studies of individual families, case review studies, and group experimental designs with random assignment to different treatment conditions. Identifying and measuring interventions that create change is an enduring challenge in human services. Designed to provide comprehensive assistance to troubled families, Family-Based Service (FBS) programs offer a wide variety of services from family therapy to emergency financial aid, and it is seldom clear which, if any, are necessary and sufficient to achieve desired outcomes. In FBS the “therapeutic contract” implied by the structure of the program is particularly important. Most studies of FBS have measured at least two types of service: clinical and concrete. Research instruments useful for monitoring program information include service checklists, service inventories, and time logs completed by workers at monthly intervals or when services are terminated.
