An overarching theoretical assumption of our approach is that at the point of contact with our service the family and/or surrounding system may have temporarily lost its capacity to tolerate the young person. Hence the intervention is focused not merely on addressing the young person's condition, but also on reinforcing the aspects of family function or wider social ecology that have faltered in the face of intrafamily and social challenges. Getting this environment back into more collaborative and contingent relationship with the young person enables what we refer to as the IntegrativeContext. This is a very practical example of one of the Core Features of AMBIT, which is Scaffolding existing relationships.

A fundamental aim of the intervention is to prevent the family's abdication of responsibility for the YP. In that context, a range of theoretical frameworks offer explanations why the family might wish to give up this responsibility, and we aim to include all these frameworks as possible contributors to defusing the family crisis.