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Scoring Getting Along Risk:

With the above in mind, you can sample the behavior and attitudes of your family members and make a judgement about how they get along. Based on your judgement, you can determine the level of risk for your family. If you like the idea of assigning a score, do it in the following way.

Using Figure Five, decide where your family falls on relationships, communication, problem solving, and decision making. The best way to do this is to take an average. For example, make a judgement about each relationship. Is it interdependent, supportive, protective, or fragmented? Use 0, 1, 2, or 3 to score the relationship. Now, what is the average or norm for your family? Add together the scores for each relationship and divide the sum by the number of relationships. The result is the average for your family.@

From the Getting Along Risk chart, use the numbers at each level as a score for the level. TJ’s family likely gets an average of 2 for relationships, a 2 for communication, a 2 for problem solving, and a 2 for decision making. The family risk score is, then, 8. You may decide the family’s score is even higher. Generally, anything higher than 4 is an indication of some risk.

For TJ’s family, the Getting Along Risk was moderate to high. Specifically for Leroy and TJ’s mother, though, the risk level between them was lower. That is why they are still together. It seems getting TJ out of the family was enough to maintain what they had going with each other. Remember Pam had already left before TJ.

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