Enhancing family agency through family-centered practices

The use of approaches that are family-centered increase impact of programmes and practices on families, individuals, communities and societies. Through this article, the authors describe what family-centered practices are and how they enhance impact. The characteristics of family-centered approaches (that is, family as the unit of attention, emphasise family strengths, facilitate family agency, encourage collaborative family-professional worker relationships, and programmes and practices that are flexible enough to meet individual family needs) are described and illustrated through an example of an initiative in the United States to address mental health disparities in rural communities.