ABSTRACT
Families and Schools Together (FAST) is a multi-systemic intervention in which multi-family groups held after school bring together all young children (ages 4-7),
whole families, schools, and communities to build relationships over time to increase child well-being (see www.familiesandschools.org). FAST applies theories from sociology and psychology to systematically increase positive outcomes for all children by building social capital in local primary schools located in disadvantaged communities, by empowering parents to feel effective and to form a collective voice of interdependent parents; and by coaching parents of children as they enter school to practice leading family activities and positive parenting to build family cohesion, the parent-child bond, and every child’s learning readiness. FAST has an established track record of increasing family engagement with lowincome, diverse families (Caspe & Lopez, 2006), and is recognized by the United Nations (UNODC, 2010) as an evidence-based, universal, family skills model for drug prevention.
