ABSTRACT
The profession of social work has long focused on the role that the family plays in shaping the overall well-being of family members. Even though the family has always been a core focus of treatment for practitioners, framing it from a family health perspective is new to the field. The chapter presents family health approach, with an emphasis on how rural homeless people would benefit from such intervention. A holistic approach to family functioning includes the concepts of the family's nature, structure, and function, which help to establish the boundaries for defining what is or is not a family. The structure of the family is the invisible set of patterns that organize the ways in which family members transact and interact. The chapter provides an overview of the limited number of programs affecting family life and offers an analysis of the factors preventing the development of a family policy.
