Creating and Evaluating a Feminist-Informed Social Justice Couple and Family Therapy Training Model

Abstract

Over the past several decades couple and family therapists have been engaged in a dialogue about issues of diversity. Some scholars have argued that the CFT field has not fully addressed diversity issues when training student therapists. Our purpose in writing this paper is to clearly identify how a feminist-informed social justice training model fits within accreditation standards of COAMFTE. The components of the model (i.e., coursework, supervision, CFT faculty relationships, CFT community relationships, relationships with local communities, recruitment, and research) are common pieces of all training programs, but in this paper we suggest ways for transforming these aspects of training to be centered in feminism and social justice. The paper concludes with the presentation of the results from two qualitative evaluations that illustrates the benefits and challenges of the feminist-informed social justice training model.

Key Words:

• Feminist
• social justice
• clinical training
• diversity
• family therapy