ABSTRACT
This chapter describes a system for evaluating several dimensions of coparenting and family process, introducing concepts based on the framework of structural family theory (S.Minuchin, 1974). The Coparenting and Family Rating System (CFRS) and its scales were developed as an alternative to several family-rating approaches that existed at the time of its development (see, e.g., Walsh, 1982) but that tended either to concentrate more focally on family diagnosis than on family process per se, and/or to require a fairly high level of clinical sophistication and inference to evaluate family health. The intent of the CFRS has been to capture variability in observable behavior exhibited during everyday family interactions. Because its scales have only been applied to community (nonclinical) samples of families with children, its utility with clinically distressed families has not yet been established. Further, the system’s emphasis on the exchanges and positioning of adult caregivers during family interaction makes it useful only for families where at least two adults are regularly involved with the children. We have used the scales effectively to evaluate interactions of both married and unmarried, two-parent families and of gay and lesbian parents. We have also used the scales to rate families with
cocaregivers who are not intimate partners (e.g., a parent and grandparent) but have very few data on such cases. However, because the focus of the scales is on coparenting and not marital relations, we suspect the scales will prove useful in evaluating such family configurations (see, e.g., Tolson & Wilson, 1990).
