[Contract Focused Group Therapy - Results of a Second Evaluation]

Contract Focused Group Therapy - Results of a Second Evaluation Contract focused group therapy (AFoG) can be understood as a successful transformation of systemic solution focused mindsets into a group therapy concept for children and adolescents. The current evaluation study intents to investigate the effectiveness of AFoG. The sample size includes 72 children who attended AFoG and their parents. A pre-post-design was used to measure the perceived exposure of the child's problem behavior via caregiver report (CBCL 4-18) and self-report (YSR 11-18) at the beginning and three months after group therapy. Based on t-tests, the hypothesis that children and parents report significantly lower symptoms after finishing AFoG than at the beginning of the group therapy can be confirmed. Especially children and adolescents who were assessed as highly displaying several behavioral problems (t-values between 71-80), show a clear decrease in the perceived symptom load in both the self-report and the caregiver report. Moreover, the clinical significance of the decrease were examined by using the Reliable Change Index. In this sense, a positive effect is recorded. Further research inclusive a control group is needed to support the effectiveness of AFoG.