An important influence on any family-based intervention (see SystemsTheory) arises from an understanding of the social context within which the family and its members function. Traditionally, environments are thought of as a set of concentric circles, each nested within another, the individual at its centre, surrounded by the nuclear family, extended family, friendship network, neighbourhood network, and community.

It is self-evident, and very much at the core of our understanding of these families, that difficulties within one ecological context are never independent of what is happening in others, therefore effective intervention at the level of the family must entail attention to problems in the school or peer context, and even more broadly to cultural pressures, that can arise for example because of the minority status of the family. These pressures may be eased by helping the family to understand the way in which they interact with the more immediate tensions within the family, or - where the external social system (such as a school or social services) is serving the family poorly, this may be helped by enabling this aspect of the system to understand the family. Attachment processes also operate between the individual and social systems, and detachment from these systems, and the institutions representing them such as school or neighbourhood, is known to be a risk factor for mental health problems. Working towards a reattachment is highly desirable, and this can be begun within a crisis intervention.