Creating Lasting Family Connections

Berks County Programs

Programs are currently running at the following locations: Berks Counseling Center, Berks County Children and Youth Services, Community Alliance Reinvestment Endeavor, Inc. (CARE), Council on Chemical Abuse, Easy Does It, Inc., and the PAL Unit of the Olivets. For more information on any of these programs, please contact the CLFC Coordinator.

Detailed information is available on the CLFC Program at Easy Does It, Inc. Please view the CLFC for Juvenile Criminal Justice Clients and CLFC for Criminal Justice Clients informational pieces.

Information about CLFC in Berks County can also be found in the CLFC Program Brochure.

General Program Information

The Creating Lasting Family Connections program is a structured curriculum for youth ages 9-17 and their parents, guardians and other family members to improve their ability to provide a nurturing environment for each other in a very effective and meaningful way. Participating youth and parents are encouraged to improve their personal growth through increasing self-awareness, expression of feelings, interpersonal communication, and self-disclosure. Participants are taught social skills, refusal skills, and appropriate alcohol and drug knowledge and healthy beliefs, which provide a strong defense against environmental risk factors that can lead to negative outcomes for youth. The Creating Lasting Family Connections program also provides parents and other caring adults with family management, family enhancement, and communications training. All participants are provided opportunities to practice these skills in a safe peer-group setting.

The Creating Lasting Family Connections program has demonstrated results in reducing alcohol, tobacco and other drug (ATOD) use, delaying onset of ATOD use, and reducing uncontrolled and violent behavior with youth. The program has been recognized as an effective science-based program by the Substance Abuse Mental Health Services Administration, the Center for Substance Abuse Prevention, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, the U.S. Department of Education, the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, and the International Youth Foundation.

The Creating Lasting Family Connections program consists of 6 modules. The parent modules are: ”Developing Positive Parental Influences”, “Raising Resilient Youth” and “Getting Real”. The 3 youth modules are: “Developing a Positive Response”, “Developing Independence and Responsibility”, and “Getting Real”. Each of the 3 individual parent trainings is a 5-6 session module with each session lasting from 1-1/2 to 2-1/2 hours depending on breaks and possibly including a meal. Each of the individual youth trainings is a 5-6 session module with sessions lasting 1 to 2-1/2 hours in length again depending on snacks, breaks and/or a meal being provided. (Sometimes it is very helpful for recruitment if families are provided meals in conjunction with the program.) An optional Parent and Youth combined “Getting Real” session usually requires an additional two or three sessions.

For maximum effectiveness, parents and youth are each involved simultaneously in their own separate three-module track lasting for 15 to 18 sessions.

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