Solution-Focused Brief Therapy in Schools: A 360-Degree View of The Research and Practice Principles Second Edition Johnny S. Kim
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We dedicate this book to the pioneers of school social work, who started
this profession in the early 20th century as a solution to the challenge of
building school/home/community linkages; to the 30-plus national and
state associations that carry on this work today; and to our school social
work students, who are eager to become the next generation of strengths-
based school social work practitioners.
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Contents
Contributing Authors ix
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Index 197
viiiContents
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Contributing Authors
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Introduction
A 360-Degree View of Solution-Focused Brief Therapy
in Schools
Johnny S. Kim, Michael S. Kelly, & Cynthia Franklin
Since its creation in the 1980s, solution-focused brief therapy (SFBT) has
gradually become a common treatment option accepted by many men-
tal health professionals (MacDonald, 2007). With its emphasis on client
strengths and short-term treatment, SFBT appears to be well suited for
school mental health contexts given the wide array of problems present-
ing in school settings and the large caseloads of most school social workers
(Franklin, Biever, Moore, Clemons, & Scamardo, 2001; Newsome, 2005).
This second edition is part of the Oxford Workshop Series and presents a
“360-degree” view of SFBT in school settings from meta-analytic, interven-
tion research, and practice perspectives.
All the chapters from the previous edition have been updated, and
we have added new chapters to further expand the clinical examples
demonstrating SFBT techniques. Since publication of the first edition
in 2006, research on SFBT in schools has produced several advances
that we cover here, including updates on recent systematic reviews and
discussion about SFBT listed on national evidence-based registries. This
second edition also expands some of the original chapters by adding a
Response to Intervention (RtI) framework for schools that may want to
use the SFBT approach. And we have added several new clinical chap-
ters called “SFBT in Action.” Selected based on results from the Second
National School Social Work Survey, which identified the most common
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Like Bonita, schools themselves are going through their own transition
in relation to the utilization of mental health services. Some policy makers
and educational leaders call for schools to become “full-service operations,”
giving students and parents the mental health, vocational, and English-
language training that external community agencies are not adequately
providing. Still others claim that school-based mental health is an “extra”
service and supportable only to the degree that it produces demonstrable
differences in student academic achievement and thus allows students to
compete successfully in the global economy. One of our colleagues remem-
bers being told by a local superintendent that he would support our col-
league’s SFBT research project only if it made a measurable positive impact
on “bottom-line” education issues for his K-8 district (in his case, this meant
higher GPAs and increased attendance).
School leaders and parents are right in wanting more from school-based
mental health services, and the profession itself has only begun to recognize
the need for more transparency with community stakeholders about the
By not presuming that all clients are inherently in need of some treat-
ment for a particular pathology or dysfunction, strengths-b ased school
social workers are free to see their clients do a variety of things well and
to ask questions that help their clients mobilize those inherent strengths
to do something about the particular problems they face. In addition,
school social workers usually have to document their work with cli-
ents by writing reports and case summaries: SFBT gives them ample
opportunities not only to focus on their client’s strengths but also to
incorporate those strengths into their written assessments and other
paperwork.
SFBT Is Portable
Though SFBT started as and remains a set of techniques rooted in clini-
cal psychotherapy, it can make a difference in numerous other nonclinical
school settings. Almost anywhere in a school is a potential site for applying
SFBT techniques or ideas: the class meeting where students scale their own
behavior and then talk about what they would have to do differently for
them to rate themselves higher the next week; the special education staffing
conference where parents and teachers describe exceptions when a student
does not display a problem behavior in an effort to discover what the learn-
ing environment (and student) might do differently to avoid repeating the
problem behavior; the playground mediation where students think about
how doing one thing differently might change a conflict they are having.
All these examples (and many more that you will read about in this book)
underline the various ways that school social workers can bring SFBT into
their diverse settings and adapt SFBT ideas to their multiple roles within
their schools.
SFBT Is Adaptable
SFBT can be folded or nested into other techniques being used by clinicians.
Most experienced school social workers we have worked with have charac-
terized their practice approach as “eclectic.” One of the best features of SFBT
as a maturing practice approach is its ability to be integrated into other such
approaches. Clearly, elements of SFBT fit nicely within a cognitive or behav-
ioral treatment framework. Even practitioners who tend to favor approaches
that are based more on discovering how the past impacts a student’s cur-
rent functioning will appreciate the aspects of SFBT where clients set goals
for their own progress and gauge how well they are doing based on scaling
questions.
processes. The nature of SFBT (the thinking that change is possible and
constant) does not mean that clients who have more long-term treatment
plans, such as those students in schools who have individualized education
plans (IEPs) requiring a year of social work services, cannot benefit from
the strengths-based approach inherent to SFBT. In our practice experience,
some students we saw on a long-term basis wound up having several distinct
SFBTs over the course of the year. The process of helping them was similar,
but the issues changed as students learned how to manage one problem and
then faced a new one.
IEP. SFBT, along with CBT, is well suited to helping school social workers
write those goals and collaborate with their clients to meet those goals suc-
cessfully. By identifying discrete changes and applying scaling questions,
school social workers can easily integrate SFBT thinking into their IEP
goals. So far, this area has not been studied empirically, but our conten-
tion, from our own school experience, is that the very process of creating
IEP goals with students, teachers, and parents in a solution-focused manner
enhanced the eventual achievement of those goals by motivating the client
system to move toward solutions rather than remain stuck at only talking
about the problem.
Summary
SFBT is well suited to school social work practice and school contexts.
A solution-focused school social worker can help students, particularly
those who are harder to reach, focus on what’s working and how they can
change their lives in positive ways. Although not originally created for appli-
cation in a school context, SFBT is clearly an adaptable, portable practice
philosophy that, as we will see, can be used in many diverse school contexts
at multiple levels of intervention.
References
Delpit, L., & Kohl, H. (2006). Other people’s children: Cultural conflict in the classroom (2nd
ed.). New York: New Press.
Ferguson, R. (October 21, 2002). What doesn’t meet the eye: Understanding and address-
ing racial disparities in high-achieving suburban schools from The Tripod Project
Background. Retrieved August 1, 2007, from http://w ww.tripodproject.org/uploads/
file/ What_doesnt_meet_the_eye.pdf
Fong, R. (2004). Immigrant and refugee children and families. In R. Fong (Ed.),
Culturally competent social work practice with immigrant children and families.
New York: Guilford Press.
Franklin, C., Biever, J., Moore, K., Clemons, D., & Scamardo, M. (2001). The effective-
ness of solution-focused therapy with children in a school setting. Research on Social
Work Practice, 11(4), 411–434.
Franklin, C., Trepper, T., Gingerich, W., & McCollum, E. (2012). Solution-focused brief
therapy: A handbook of evidence-based practice. New York: Oxford University Press.
Kim, J. S. (2014). Solution- focused brief therapy: A multicultural approach. Thousand
Oaks: CA: Sage Publications.
MacDonald, A. J. (2007). Solution-focused therapy: Theory, research and practice. London:
Sage Books.
McGoldrick, M., Giordano, J., & Pearse, J. K. (1996). Ethnicity and family therapy
(2nd ed.). New York: Guilford Press.
Newsome, S. (2005). The impact of solution-focused brief therapy with at-risk junior
high school students. Children & Schools, 27(2), 83–90.
Tripod Project. (2007). Background of Tripod research project. Retrieved August 1, 2007,
from http://w ww.tripodproject.org/index.php/about/about_background/
Wing Sue, D., & McGoldrick, M. (2005). Multicultural social work practice. New York:
Wiley.
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■■■
The History
In the late 1970s, psychotherapy in the United States was at its zenith. The
evidence for this high point was everywhere: mental health services had
gone mainstream, self-help books topped the best-seller lists, and perhaps
most important, economic conditions had created a high degree of health
insurance support for mental health services (Cushman, 1995; Moskowitz,
2001; Wylie, 1994). The insurance money for psychotherapy usually was
not time limited and was also generous, allowing therapists from psychia-
try, psychology, and social work to earn six-figure incomes. A review of the
popular and academic literature of that time reveals that three main schools
of psychotherapy were popular then: psychodynamic therapy, cognitive-
behavioral therapy (CBT), and humanistic psychology (Norcross &
Goldried, 2003). Therapy was available, usually open ended or long term, to
almost anyone who knew where to find it.
By the early 1990s, things had changed dramatically. Self-help books
continued to crowd American bookstore shelves, but psychotherapy
had become a profession that was largely dominated by managed care.
Although still readily available to many people who needed it, psycho-
therapy was now time limited, often restricted to no more than 20 sessions
a year. Fees for therapists had been capped as well, and the golden days of
lucrative therapy practices had begun to fade (Duncan, Hubble, & Miller,
1999; Lipchik, 1994; Wylie, 1994). To a psychoanalytically informed prac-
titioner used to seeing patients for a decade or more, this new era was
dreary indeed.
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works and may be used in future research studies to examine change pro-
cesses within SFBT.
Under the broaden-and-build theory, positive emotions further elicit
thought-action repertoires that are broad, flexible, and receptive to new
thoughts and actions, whereas negative emotions elicit thought-action rep-
ertoires that are limited, rigid, and less receptive. The broadening aspect
of this theory posits that after someone experiences a positive feeling, that
person is more open and more receptive. This may be the key step in helping
students observe exceptions, make new meanings, and do something different
that is touted in SFBT practice literature (de Shazer, 1991). In addition to
broadening, this theory also posits that positive emotions help build durable
resources that can be drawn upon for future use. Students experiencing psy-
chological problems like depression or anxiety commonly to dwell on nega-
tive thoughts and beliefs about themselves or a particular situation, which
then leads to dysfunctional behaviors and further perpetuates a downward
spiral of psychopathology (Garland, Fredrickson, Kring, Johnson, Meyer, &
Penn, 2010). With positive emotions, the opposite can occur: upward spirals
of positive emotions help students build enduring resources of new thoughts,
perspectives, and options (Fitzpatrick & Stalikas, 2008b). But to counter-
act the negative emotions students experience, a greater number of positive
emotions must be experienced. Research suggests that, at minimum, a 3-to-
1 ratio of positive emotions experienced to negative emotions is necessary
to help generate sustained positive changes and undo the impact of nega-
tive distress (Garland et al., 2010). Therapeutic techniques for increasing
positive emotion are fairly new to positive psychology and are still being
developed. However, techniques for increasing client strengths and posi-
tive emotions are not new to SFBT; they have existed for many years and
have been successfully applied in diverse practice settings (Kim & Franklin,
2015). Formulating answers to solution-focused questions requires students
to think about their relationships and talk about their experiences in dif-
ferent ways, turning their problem perceptions and negative emotions into
positive formulations for change.
The Skills
As the Solution-Focused Brief Therapy Association (SFBTA) makes clear,
“[SFBT] should be characterized as a way of clinical thinking and interacting
with clients more than a list of techniques” (SFBTA, 2006, p. 2). By viewing
a client as being engaged in a constant process of change, solution-focused
clinicians are poised to tap into that client’s natural ways of healing and exist-
ing ways of viewing change (Tallman & Bohart, 1999). In July 2013, the sec-
ond edition of the Solution Focused Therapy Treatment Manual for Working with
Individuals was published on the SFBTA website for clinicians to learn more
about the clinical practices and research relevant to SFBT. It is free to down-
load at www.sfbta.org and a great resource for learning more SFBT techniques.
»Te ette siis huoli minua, ettehän! Oi, miten onneton olenkaan!»
»Entä viettelijä?»
»Kuollut.»
»Ja perheenne?»
»Ellei hän heti vapauta teitä, niin jätän hänelle takaisin kaikki
tavarat, enkä enää koskaan tee kauppoja hänen luonaan.»
»Minä otan teidät siis kohta mukaani, hyvä neiti», sanoi vanha
rouva.
»Tulkaa kanssani!»
Hanna totteli.
»Kyllä, kyllä.»
»Oh, en, minä vain etsin jotain vanhaa kirjaa; poika parkani
haluaisi niin lukea jotain. Olkaa hyvä ja istukaa.»
»Minun täytyy sanoa teille kaikki, Mrs. Edgecombe; en voi enää olla
tunnustamatta teille kaikkea…»
Hannalla oli nyt ollut uusi paikkansa kuusi kuukautta, ja hän oli
hyvin tyytyväinen. Luuloteltu keuhkotauti oli muuttunut mitä
kukoistavimmaksi terveydeksi. Jo ensi hetkessä ilmaantunut
molemminpuolinen ihastus oli yhä juurtunut. Hannan monipuolinen
sivistys, hänen hieno käytöksensä, musikaaliset taipumukset, hänen
kykynsä ottaa osaa keskusteluun tekivät hänestä kruunun
seuranaisten luokassa. Mrs. Edgecombe taasen oli tasainen ja
iloinen luonteeltaan sekä sitäpaitsi aina ystävällinen ja
hienotunteinen. Eipä siis ihmettä, että heistä oli hauskaa seurustella
toistensa kanssa.
Näytti jo siltä, että vanhan linnan täytyisi joutua vasaran alle, kun
hän äkkiarvaamatta sai suuren perinnön, jolla velat maksettiin ja
entinen elämä jatkui. Tämä seikka paransi Mr. Edgecomben