Families And Schools Together (FAST)

Families And Schools Together (FAST) is a multifamily group intervention program designed to build protective factors for children (ages 4 to 12), to empower parents to be the primary prevention agents for their own children, and to build supportive parent-to-parent groups. Developed in 1988, FAST has been implemented in more than 800 schools in 45 States and five countries. It is based on research in several areas: social ecology of child development; child psychiatry; family stress; family systems; social support; family therapy; parent-led play therapy; group work; stress, isolation, and poverty; and adult education and community development. Using the existing strengths of families, schools, and communities in creative partnerships, FAST offers youth structured opportunities for involvement in repeated relationship-building interactions with the primary caretaking parent, other family members, other families, peers, school representatives, and community representatives.

The overall goal of the FAST program is to intervene early to help at-risk youth succeed in the community, at home, and in school and thus avoid problems such as adolescent delinquency, violence, addiction, and dropping out of school.

FAST has generally improved aggressive behaviors and increased positive behaviors amongst participants as reported by teachers and parents.

Three randomized controlled trials (RCT) of the FAST program have been completed. All three studies used widely recognized outcome measures of child behavior, with established reliability and validity--the Social Skills Rating System (SSRS) and the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL)--which include subscales for social skills, aggression, and academic performance.

The results of the first RCT (Kratchowill et al. 2004) showed that 9 months to 1 year after the intervention, children in the FAST treatment group showed significantly more positive scores on social skills (SSRS) than control group children, as rated by parents, and significantly lower scores than children in the control group on the CBCL subscale for externalizing (aggressive) behaviors, as reported by teachers.

The results of the second RCT (McDonald et al. 2006) showed statistically significant differences at 2 year follow-up on externalizing behaviors, child social skills, and academic performance scores in which FAST students had significantly lower scores, higher scores, and higher scores respectively. However there were no differences seen in internalizing behaviors nor in SRSS scores between FAST and control-group students.

The third RCT (Kratchowill et al. 2009) found no differences in internalizing and externalizing behaviors, rated by CBCL scores, and no differences in social skill ratings between FAST groups and control groups at immediate and 1 year followups.