[Contract Focused Group Therapy - Results of a Second Evaluation]. / Auftragsfokussierende Gruppentherapie ­ Ergebnisse einer erneuten Evaluationsstudie.

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.

[Contract focused short-term group therapy--results of an evaluation]. / Auftragsfokussierende Gruppenkurztherapie--Ergebnisse einer Evaluation.

A short description outlines the development of commission focused short-term therapy (AFoG) for children and adolescents. Subsequently the generic principles of psychotherapy are applied to AFoG in order to underline the basic assumptions of this variation of systemic group therapy. Behavioural changes arising in different contexts (school, family, group therapy) show the need for an appropriate flexibility of group therapy techniques. The evaluation was accomplished using the Child Behaviour Checklist (CBCL 4-18) at the beginning and 3 month after the end of the group therapy. The results show positive effects which finally are discussed critically.