In the ongoing search for causes for schizophrenia, focus on the harmful effects of critical or rejecting family members and deviant communication patterns has obscured the potentially beneficial role of many families in providing support for their schizophrenic relatives. Falloon and his colleagues have developed a model for the broad-based community treatment of schizophrenia and other severe forms of mental illness that taps this underutilized potential. Their exposition of the family care model, coupled with case studies and results from a controlled outcome study, reveal the family to be an important resource in the community management of mental illness.