Implementing Family Check-Up^® For Children

The REACH Institute at Arizona State University (ASU) offers training, implementation support, and resources to Family Check-Up service providers.

Family Check-Up (FCU) for Children is a strengths-based, family-centered intervention designed to support parents’ efforts to promote children’s competence, mental health, and risk-reduction. The model is tailored to address the specific needs of each family and can be integrated into a variety of service settings, including home visiting.

The target population for this model is families with risk factors including socioeconomic disadvantage, maternal depression, family and child risk factors for child conduct problems, and academic failure.

Families with children ages 2 to 17 years are eligible for the FCU. The FCU for Children is appropriate for families with children ages 2 to 5. For the purpose of the HomVEE review, only studies of sites that used home visiting as the primary service delivery method and that included families with children 2 to 5 years of age were included.

FCU is designed to reduce children’s conduct, academic, and internalizing problems, and to improve maternal depression, parental involvement, and positive parenting.

FCU has two phases. The first is composed of three sessions that occur within the home and involve an interview, assessment, and feedback. Providers may refer families to additional community services as indicated. In the second phase, providers deliver the Everyday Parenting family management training program to families in the home. Everyday Parenting provides a basis for more intensive parenting support and is designed to enhance parents’ skills in positive behavior support, healthy limit-setting, and relationship-building. The FCU health maintenance model involves yearly check-ups, which offer providers the opportunity to track family and child behaviors over time and continue to motivate families to change persistent areas of difficulty.

FCU consists of three initial one-hour sessions (interview, assessment, and feedback), which are scheduled in close proximity to one another. Parents also may choose to engage in follow-up services, which typically include Everyday Parenting and involve an average of three to six sessions. As a health promotion and prevention strategy, the second phase of FCU can be limited to 1 to 3 Everyday Parenting sessions. As a treatment approach, phase two can range from 3 to 15 Everyday Parenting sessions.

FCU is currently being offered in the following states: Arizona, Florida, Illinois, Kentucky, Nevada, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and South Carolina. It is also implemented in Canada, and in Sweden by the Center for Progress in Children’s Mental Health.

FCU has been delivered in two, rather than three, sessions: one extended interview and assessment session plus one feedback session.

The information contained on this page was last updated in April 2017. Recommended Further Reading lists the sources for this information. In addition, the information contained in this profile was reviewed for accuracy by the REACH Institute at Arizona State University on January 18, 2017. HomVEE reserves the right to edit the profile for clarity and consistency.