Strategies for practice in helping fathers step up to the plate and stay engaged

In times of stress or crisis for families, one effective approach practitioners can use is the conceptual framework of family strengths as a mechanism to promote strong, healthy relationships. The purpose of this article is to familiarize practitioners with the family strengths perspective and encourage them to incorporate family strengths into working with fathers. Clinical impressions will be discussed, including introducing Holistic Integration Techniques (HIT), along with other intervention strategies for practitioners implement. The concept of family strengths has been studied for several decades and describes a family that functions optimally in support of the individual members, including fathers. When practitioners use a family strengths theoretical framework in their practice instead of focusing on trying to improve deficits of family functioning, they pay attention to strengthening families and giving them the tools to achieve a quality walk of life