It is noteworthy that WIC agencies offer assistance in nearly every county in the United States. As such, offering the FCU as an integral feature of the WIC program could potentially have a large public health effect in the entire country. Given that indigent families are the most likely to engage in WIC, comprehensive insertion of empirically supported family intervention services in WIC and other settings serving this population (e.g., Early Head Start, Head Start) could provide substantial public health benefits for the larger community. In previous reports, we documented similar outcomes after having inserted the FCU into public school environments, which resulted in preventive effects on adolescent problem behavior that endured from age 11 through 18 (Connell et al., 2007). Thus, it is becoming increasingly clear that families can be effectively supported throughout development, with lasting benefits in terms of reducing substance use and mental health problems in children and adolescents, and in turn reducing persistent and severe problematic behaviors in emerging adulthood and beyond.
