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Mailman School
of Public Health
Columbia University
722 West 168th Street,
8th Floor
New York, NY 10032
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Putting families first: America's family support movement and the challenge of change Sharon L. Kagan and Bernice Weissbourd, Editors This book defines the principles of the growing family support movement. It shows how these principles are being applied with families at home, in schools, in health care delivery, in the workplace, in religious institutions, in the criminal justice system, and in child welfare services and other social services. It also addresses issues of quality, training and evaluation. Family support programs - especially those aimed at families that live in poverty or are jobless, in poor health, or experiencing social stresses - provide emotional support and the information and assistance needed to help families become strong and stable. Key principles include involving parents, treating the family as a unit, and recognizing that family life influences a child's development more than anything else. The authors suggest that American individualism has led to family neglect, especially when comparing the United States to other industrialized countries, and they argue for a new relationship between families and society. They propose that preventive health care take a community-based two-generation approach to meet families' basic needs for food, housing, parenting information, and safe and nurturing communities. They suggest that more attention go to the role of the church in supporting families, and to promising initiatives in the justice system and the mental health and substance-abuse treatment systems. Challenges include staffing and supportive supervision; funding; cultural appropriateness and individual diversity; infusing national, state, and local policy with family support principles; working in high-risk communities; and operating in fragmented service systems.
Jossey-Bass, Inc.
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Disclaimer Free To Grow is a national program supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation with direction and technical assistance provided by the Mailman School of Public Health of Columbia University. |