| Sumario: | The experience of a two-year project to promote partnerships between 12 graduate Marriage and Family Therapy (MFT) training programs and their 12 local Head Start partners is outlined. Of the partnerships that constituted the project, nine had established relationships with each other prior to the project and three had no preexisting relationship but wanted to develop one. The American Association of Marriage and Family Therapy awarded grants to all the partnerships. The project offered an opportunity for MFT faculty and interns to integrate family systems theory into larger organizational settings and to enhance the capacity of MFTs to serve disadvantaged, low-income, culturally diverse families and the community agencies that work with them. In addition, preparing MFT students to intervene and respond systemically both in organizations and with the families they serve is a viable alternative to more traditional approaches to MFT that limit focus to the family system. Issues of implementation are considered, and recommendations on improving collaboration between MFTs and community-based agencies such as Head Start are provided.
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