- Culturally Informed and Flexible Family Based Treatment for Adolescents (CIFFTA) was developed to fill the need for an evidence based treatment that combined the best of family treatment, adolescent treatment, and advances in serving racially and ethnically diverse families. CIFFTA stands out because it places emphasis on how culture related experiences impact well-being and treatment process.
- Many EBTs are used to treat diverse populations even when they have not been fully developed for or tested with these groups. It is even more difficult to find EBTs that include culture related content at the core of the therapy.
- The shortage of culturally informed EBTs is problematic because there is research evidence that many clients have superior outcomes when they receive interventions that systematically take their unique cultural perspectives and experiences into account.
- These findings led to the development and testing of CIFFTA, an innovative adaptive intervention based on advances in culturally sensitive treatments, Motivational Interviewing, family systems theory, Structural Family Therapy, and Social Ecology theory. CIFFTA’s adaptive and flexible approach moves away from a “one-size-fits-all” and provides the tools needed so that treatment to be tailored to the clients unique clinical and cultural characteristics. Its decision rules facilitate the tailoring process and ensure that its implementation is systematic and replicable.
