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This chapter highlights some of the similarities and differences between the three therapeutic models that comprise the strengths- and skills-building approach — solution-focused therapy, motivational interviewing, and cognitive-behavioral therapy — in terms of the models' stance toward strengths and behavioral change, the client's relationship to the change process, the time needed to enact change, the degree of structure and direction required, and the system level at which change is targeted. As much as possible, client strengths, resources, and motivation are identified, reinforced, and amplified. Cognitive-behavioral skill-building is used to bolster areas where the client has knowledge or skill gaps that seem to interfere with the attainment of their goals. The aim throughout is a collaborative process in which the individual, not the practitioner, is seen as the ultimate expert on his or her life.

Practice-based evidence has been important to the development of solution focused brief therapy since its inception at the Brief Family Therapy Center (BFTC) in Milwaukee. This chapter illustrates the importance of using practice-based research data to shape solution focused practices in a clinical setting by chronicling the developments at one clinic, BRIEF, in London, and showing how research data was used there to guide and improve the delivery of solution focused therapy. It also discusses both the challenges of collecting practice-based research data and the benefits and uses of this type of data in a clinical setting.

This chapter discusses how to apply the strengths- and skills-building model to the problem of depression with an emphasis on solution-focused and cognitive-behavioral therapies. The purpose is to empower the client with a focus on what is going well and to take concrete steps to a depression-free future. Specific techniques from solution-focused therapy include the use of idiosyncratic language, normalizing, coping questions, orienting toward the future, exception-finding, externalizing, and scaling. Techniques from cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) include social skill training, feeling identification and management, and cognitive-restructuring. However, a strengths orientation pervades the application of CBT techniques to continue the positive and hopeful thrust of solution-focused therapy to the problem of depression.

The U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences reports that high school dropout is a continuing problem for schools. The percentage of students who do not graduate from high school at the end of a 13-year program of study ranges from 11% to 28% for certain at-risk student populations. Some research suggests that high school dropouts are more likely to abuse drugs, be unemployed, or be in jail. School social workers and other student support services professionals need effective interventions that can engage students and can develop a quick change in students’ behaviors and attitudes. Since the 1990s, school social workers and counselors have been experimenting with solution-focused, brief therapy (SFBT) to assist students with academic and behavioral problems. SFBT developed out of family systems theory and social construction family practice. This chapter describes the steps in conducting SFBT and how it can be applied with students who are at risk of dropping out of high school.

This chapter describes the solution-focused Taking Charge (TC) intervention, a school-based program designed to help adolescent mothers. Taking Charge is a multimodal, brief cognitive behavioral curriculum that was developed within solution-focused and developmental frameworks, utilizing the strengths, resources, life goals, and developmental tasks of adolescent mothers. The goals of the curriculum are to construct a solution-focused approach that can help adolescent mothers develop the solutions they need in order to achieve good outcomes in four targeted life domains: the mother's education, social support/personal relationships, parenting, and employment/career preparation. The chapter describes the importance of these four life domains to the future outcomes of adolescent mothers and how the major components of the solution-focused TC intervention help adolescent women who are pregnant and parenting develop their own goals and solutions in these areas. It also highlights how the TC program was created, using research evidence on what works to help adolescent mothers be self-sufficient, and describes the research studies where the program was tested in schools with adolescents.

Over the past two decades, solution-focused brief therapy (SFBT) has become a popular therapeutic model for marriage and family therapist, professional counselors, and social work educators and practitioners. This chapter will provide a historical overview of how SFBT was developed inductively from a multidisciplinary team of clinicians working at the Mental Research Institute in the 1970s, the development of the Brief Family Therapy Center in the 1980s by de Shazer and Kim-Berg, and the development of the Solution-Focused Brief Therapy Association in the 2000s. This chapter will also cover the basic tenets of SFBT, an overview of the process of a SFBT session, and serve as an introduction to the rest of the book

This chapter explores how values clarification is similar to and different from a number of different approaches to counseling and psychotherapy. By comparing and contrasting values clarification to these approaches, further insight and understanding is gained about values clarification. The other approaches discussed are: person-centered counseling and psychotherapy, cognitive-behavioral therapy, reality therapy – choice theory, existential therapy, individual psychology, solution-focused brief therapy, acceptance and commitment therapy, narrative therapy, motivational interviewing, appreciative inquiry, life coaching, and positive psychology

Hawai’i has been experimenting with a restorative reentry planning process for incarcerated people who are accountable for their harmful behavior and imprisonment, and who want to make amends with their children, other harmed loved ones, and the community at large. Between 2005 and 2013, 100 circles were provided for 494 participants including approximately 42 children aged 4-28. This evaluation looked at the “healing” effects of the circles on children. Healing was operationalized by rating the children’s ability to move past the trauma of losing their parent to incarceration. A scale of one to five was developed to quantify subjects’ self-perceived changes after the circle intervention. Open-ended questions concerning healing were also asked. The evaluation yielded promising indications that the reentry circles increase healing for children. They provide a powerful participatory arena for children in making decisions regarding their parents' release from prison. This paper describes research findings, and identifies how the circles make child participation meaningful through characteristics of restorative justice.