Over the course of the year 2000, two groups of parents, children and some grandparents living in mainly low-income neighborhoods in Milwaukee joined a program that in essence invited them to become members of larger “families.”  The program, known as Family Foundations, is operated by Marquette University’s Institute for the Transformation of Learning, a center that promotes the expansion of educational options as a way of improving academic achievement in urban America. The Institute views its work with Family Foundations as contributing to its overall effort to empower

low-income families.   

Family Foundations has thus far brought together members of 22 families for recreation, workshops, lessons and discussions. These kinds of activities are common to many programs; what is more distinctive about Family Foundations is its structure.  The program:

 

• enrolls whole families rather than individual participants;
• engages participants not by focusing on one particular activity or set of interests but by encouraging them to enjoy an informal and intimate group experience; and
• offers families time to have fun, while at the same guiding parents to reflect seriously on their personal goals and on how to improve their communities

 

In the world of social programs, the Family Foundations approach most resembles a “family support” intervention – a program that in contrast to interventions that focus on helping parents and children overcome deficits, seeks to strengthen the entire family by engaging its members in activities with broad appeal.

Family Foundations received its initial funding from the Milwaukee Making Connections Program, one of 22 Making Connections sites across the U.S. that are supported by the Annie E. Casey Foundation.  Like all of these sites, the Milwaukee initiative enlists residents of selected low-income neighborhoods and their local institutions in efforts to link families to economic opportunities, social networks and services. 

The Milwaukee site of Making Connections targets nine low-income communities with a population of over 27,000 residents. In addition to Family Foundations, Making Connections Milwaukee supports a number of other projects with goals that include improving family links to health, establishing community schools, neighborhood revitalization, building family assets and wealth, helping families find good jobs, creating a community data warehouse and encouraging resident leadership. 

Family Foundations has not yet been formally evaluated.   This overview of the program’s early operations is based on a review of written materials from the program and on interviews with its managers and a selected group of seven participants.^[1] The paper opens with two sections that help to introduce Family Foundations – one on its rationale, and another on the structure of the program and its participants.  These sections are followed by a discussion of lessons and insights that have emerged from the program experience.     

 

Why Family Foundations?

 

The rationale for Family Foundations reflects some of the important ideas and principles of Making Connections.  Both nationally and in Milwaukee, the primary purpose of Making Connections is to strengthen families and neighborhoods, and as the program name suggests, an important strategy for achieving this goal is to try to reduce isolation.  The premise of Making Connections is that too many families, especially those in low-income communities, are cut off from important sources of support – from networks of friends and neighbors, economic opportunities and key services. In response, Making Connections seeks to help families break out of the physical, social, and/or economic isolation that makes it more difficult for them to realize their aspirations.     

Consistent with this outlook, the most immediate goal of Family Foundations was to create a community of caring parents and children.  But because Making Connections also looks to local leaders to help reduce isolation in communities, Family Foundations planners hoped that the program would develop leadership skills in the program parents, who would over the longer term work on broader community issues, including other Making Connections projects. Other key goals for Family Foundations were to:

 

·        develop long-term and permanent family strengths;

·        develop strong parental involvement in children’s schooling;

·        build on family and community strengths by embracing the social, cultural, religious and family norms and traditions of program families; and

·        use a collaborative approach with program families to encourage their investment in the goals of the program. 

 

The Outlines of Family Foundations: Participants, Structure and Activities

 

In early 2000 the Institute for the Transformation of Learning received a $25,000 seed grant from the Casey Foundation to operate Family Foundations. The expectation was that Family Foundations would serve families living within the Milwaukee Making Connections target area. ^[2]

During 2000, two groups, or cohorts, of families were brought into the program. The first group, consisting of 12 families, began participation in May; another cohort, consisting of 11 families, started in October.

The funding period for the Casey grant ended in December 2000 for Cohort 1 and in November 2001 for Cohort 2, although some activities for these families continue on a more informal basis.  In addition, with the support of a $15,000 grant from the Helen Bader Foundation, the Institute is working with additional families in a program called

Family Pyramids, which is a school-based version of Family Foundations.  This paper concentrates on the experiences of Cohort 1 and 2 families through the end of 2001.

Family Foundations was managed by an Institute staff member, who worked part-time on the program.  For Cohort 2 staffing was expanded to include a former Cohort 1 participant as a Family/School/Community Advocate.  This staff member provided full-time assistance to the manager by helping to recruit new participants and arrange events.

The program began with outreach to families to inform them about Family Foundations and encourage them to join. Although the program aimed to stimulate local leadership, the recruitment did not screen parents for their past levels of involvement in the community affairs.  One of the managers explained why Family Foundations accepted parents with little or no leadership experience:

 

We were happy to look for people whom other people overlook.  We would take the stars, but sometimes leaders are already pulled in so many directions, they are less likely to join a new program.  And often, it’s the person sitting there quietly, the person we assume doesn’t have much to say, who turns out to have a lot to contribute.  So we weren’t seeking out a particular leadership profile. We believe there’s some leadership potential in every family. 

 

At the same time, the program was open to parents who had had more experience as leaders or volunteers in the community.    

Some of the recruiting was through word-of-mouth.  In addition, for Cohort 1, managers used a number of schools as contact points, posting notices about Family Foundations and publicizing it at school meetings. During the early months of Cohort 1 recruitment, program managers reported to the Casey Foundation that they were finding it difficult to identify a sufficiently large number of families from the target area.  In response, the Foundation agreed that the area could be somewhat expanded.  As a result, four of the Cohort 1 families lived outside the boundaries of the target area. 

The managers subsequently found that Cohort 1 families were too geographically dispersed, making it difficult for parents to stay in touch outside the program and to work together on school issues.  In a change of strategies, Cohort 2 recruitment focused on a single school within the Making Connections target area. For both Cohorts, when families indicated an interest in participating, they were sent personal invitations followed by phone calls inviting them to attend an orientation.

Cohort 1 had a total of 49 participants for its first retreat – 19 adults and 30 children, ranging in age from infancy to 13.  Cohort 2 began its retreat with 26 participants – 9 adults and 17 children between the ages of 1 and 14.

Families who joined the program were mainly headed by single mothers, typically in their early thirties.  Most children began participation before they became adolescents, although several entered their teenage years over the course of program participation. Participants also included several grandparents and fathers, including two who headed their own households.  Reflecting the neighborhoods from which they were recruited, all but one participant was African-American (and that person was the parent of biracial children.)  Most of the parents worked outside the home, although almost all of the families were living on very modest incomes. Some parents were both working and attending school.  A few participants had personal connections to Family Foundations managers. ^[3]

Although as noted, membership was not limited to traditional or readily identifiable leaders, some participants did have jobs or other experiences that fit the program’s community-minded outlook.  For example, among the interviewees, one had been a VISTA volunteer and is majoring in community affairs at community college, another is a teacher in a Title I school, and a third, who is pursuing a degree majoring in African-American Studies and psychology, says that community improvement issues are a strong focus for his studies.      

Each cohort began participation with a family orientation meeting.  For both cohorts, very little time elapsed between that session and a retreat lasting a full weekend.  Thus, families, who tended to know one another only casually or not at all, were quickly immersed in an intensive group experience. 

Over the course of the funded period for Cohort 1, families attended three other retreats, interspersed with monthly workshops, some of which were family outings. Due to more limited funding, Cohort 2 families attended only two retreats, but followed the same pattern of monthly workshops and outings.  

Some retreats were held at a facility in a rural setting one hour away from the city, others in Milwaukee. Retreats included artistic, physical and team-building activities, family-focused discussions held separately for women and men, and – at the rural facility nightly campfires and nature walks.  A workshop might begin with a family art project followed by a presentation for adults on topics that included building family income, home buying and parenting.  As needed, separate activities were arranged for children during adult sessions. The program sponsored sessions for parents and older children on substance abuse prevention, which were facilitated by its collaboration with the New Concepts Self-Development Center, which operates a “Powerful Prevention” alcohol, tobacco and drug abuse prevention project.  Stipends of $50 were offered to Cohort 1 families to offset any expenses incurred for some of the weekend retreats; the budget did not permit these expenditures for Cohort 2.   

Like the retreats, the workshops also allowed for informal gatherings, where parents – and occasionally parents and children together -- discussed their personal goals and concerns about their communities. Special Family Foundations events included a trip to a museum with a family scavenger hunt, a trust-building ropes course at a local YMCA, a trip to the African World Festival at the Milwaukee Summerfest Grounds and a Kwanza celebration.    

  

Early Insights from the Family Foundations Experience

 

As is true for the examination of any program when it is young, it is useful to distinguish between Family Foundation’s longer- and shorter-term goals. This section focuses on some of the program’s more immediate accomplishments – for example, the development of a sense of connection between families, signs of personal growth and changes in attitudes toward parenting. 

As discussed earlier, an important long-term goal for Family Foundations was to surface local leaders who would become involved in broader efforts to strengthen families by working on community issues, especially other Making Connections projects.  There are indications that in short-term the program has heightened community engagement for some members, although, as will be discussed in the conclusions, without a research study we cannot know exactly how much of this difference can be attributed to the Family Foundations experience.  And it is definitely premature to assess whether the program has made an appreciable difference in the extent to which the participants assume and maintain leadership roles in their schools and neighborhoods over an extended period of time. During the next several years, it would be useful to track whether Family Foundations members do fill leadership positions that advance the Making Connections agenda in Milwaukee. 

It is not too early, however, to get a sense of the more immediate role Family Foundations has played in the lives of participating families.  Following are some insights about that experience:

 

• Family Foundations has created caring communities of parents and children. 

 

At a time when families are often isolated from one another and from community institutions, Family Foundations has established cohesive groups of low-income families who showed a strong commitment to sharing time with one another.    Especially in light of the many competing claims on the schedules of busy parents and the difficulties of attracting them to organized activities outside their homes, the program’s participation record is strong: Of the 23 families who joined Cohorts 1 and 2, 15 continued throughout the life of the program and participated regularly -- meaning at least one family member attended scheduled events over 90 percent of the time.  Only three families dropped out of the program altogether, and another four participated inconsistently. (One of the families that dropped moved out of state and in a second family, the parent went on to assume the Family/School/Community Advocate position in Making Connections.)  In another sign of their strong connection to the group, participants sometimes rearranged their work schedules or other commitments so that they could be free to attend program events. ^[4]

Reinforcing these positive participation patterns, Family Foundations members who were interviewed for this paper all described their experiences with enthusiasm and warmth:

 

·        I really like the way they brought families together.

·        This program was wonderful.  It did so many wonderful things for the kids.

·        I loved the retreats … I’m really happy this program is out there.

·        The kids were always excited to go.  They’d always ask me, ‘When are we going to the next meeting?’

·        This is a good program; more people should take a look at it and duplicate it.    

 

In reflecting on the tributes interviewees made to Family Foundations, it is worth noting that participants in programs sometimes conceive of them as separate, even distant, institutions – in essence, something that “happens to” the individual.  In contrast, the sense of Family Foundations conveyed by the interviewees more closely resembled  a description of an informal social group, consisting of a common experience shaped by participants.

When asked about anything they disliked or wanted to change about the program,

interviewees had virtually no complaints.  One respondent said that the program could

have been improved by having had more male participants.  (Three males, one of whom also served as a facilitator, participated consistently in Cohort 1 and one in Cohort 2.  )    But another participant said that the small number of males was not a problem, since those who did attend felt welcome and part of the larger “family.”

Two participants mentioned they initially found it challenging to become comfortable with strangers or casual acquaintances.  But aside from that issue, interviewees did not cite any interpersonal problems in their groups, which they all described in terms that made them sound extremely cohesive and harmonious.  No one could recall any significant dissension among the adults, and several participants remarked on how well children in the groups got along with one another.

In view of the struggles and conflicts that mark many group experiences, the high level of positive feeling that seems to have prevailed in Family Foundations is noteworthy. When asked about why relationships went so smoothly, one interviewee said:

 

·        I guess we realized that everyone has the same issues. 

 

And another one responded:

 

·        Everyone had the same purpose – to make things better for their kids.  

 

These explanations suggest that at least one source of the group harmony was the program’s success in conveying a clear sense of common goals and mission that helped participants form bonds with one another.    

 

• One of the most valuable strategies used in the program was to build in recreational time for families members to spend together. 

 

All the interviewees said they particularly appreciated the program’s organized activities for families. 

·        We got to do things with our children that we didn’t have a chance to do at home. 

·        I work and go to school.  So the program gives me time to spend with my kids.

 

Illustrating the pleasure they took from these sessions, one interviewee recalled a crafts project that she enjoyed:

 

·        We took sticks [walking sticks]  and there were different kinds of pictures we could paste on them to represent our family.  My son decorated one area, my daughter did her side, and I did mine.  And then we had to explain to everybody else what the stick meant to us.   

 

Contributing to the appeal of the activities, they were free of charge or nominally priced, pre-arranged, and offered parents a chance to socialize with other adults while interacting with their own children. According to the program managers, this very accessible recreation gave families a strong incentive to participate in a program where they then were given exposure to lectures and discussions that they might have passed up if these activities had not been part of the Family Foundations “package.”  Thus, one interviewee noted that she also belonged to a sorority but does not attend its meetings as consistently as Family Foundations events, because it is for adults only.  And most of the other interviewees said that since they had become parents, they had had minimal involvement in organized groups outside the home, but that the family-oriented nature of Family Foundations encouraged them to join and stay involved. 

The Family/School/Community Advocate notes that in comparison to stipends, the recreational activities seemed to be a far more important motivator to parents to participate in Family Foundations.  Weighing the two monetary benefits, she says that the opportunity to take advantage of a recreational activity such as a museum trip at no cost seemed to mean more to the families than stipends, perhaps because the free-of-charge admissions were perceived as more directly opening the door to experiences that are hard to fit into tight budgets.  In addition, she observes that a trip to the zoo on a free-admission day or workshop activities that entailed no special expenses were as well received as activities for which admissions were paid. She concludes that the waiving of charges, while appreciated, was not the driving force behind families’ participation in recreational activities. Instead, she believes that they were most engaged by the group spirit of the entire experience.       

It is also worth noting that in contrast to some participation incentives such as prizes, the recreational time did more than encourage members to maintain attendance.  The recreation was also a benefit to parents in its own right, because – using an important strategy for strengthening families -- it helped them set aside quality time for their children.  This time gave parents a chance to listen to, appreciate and otherwise interact with their children in an environment free of many of the daily pressures of home life.  In words of one of the program managers:

When you’re working at a low-income job that’s physically demanding, you’re always very  tired and getting ready for the next day.  So you make promises: “We’ll do this, we’ll do that.”  But with Family Foundations, parents could schedule a specific day or part of a day to do nothing but spend time with the children.

 

And  parents  got to see their kids in a new light.  They could listen to how their children think and see the world.  And kids would contribute their own ideas; they’d rise to the occasion.  For instance, [ in a discussion of goals for the community] one boy said he wanted to become a doctor because there’s too much sickness in the community.  Parents can take pride in a statement like that.  

 

Despite the difficulties of trying to independently arrange special family activities in busy households, the interviews suggest that the Family Foundations experience has encouraged at least some participants to spend more recreational time with their children outside of the program.  One member said that after having cooked a dinner with her child at a Family Foundations retreat, she is more apt to suggest that the child make a meal with her at home.  Another participant reported that the Family Foundations experience has reminded him to arrange family outings.  

 

• Family Foundations shaped participants’ attitudes toward parenting.

 

Part of the way in which Family Foundations influenced parenting attitudes was simply that, as discussed, the program offered parents and children quality time to spend with one another. Several interviewees also said that Family Foundations had helped them re-evaluate their parenting behavior. 

 

One of my children is more difficult than the others, so I have a tendency to shout at him.  But people in the group told me, “Try to listen to him more and he might calm down.” And it’s worked. 

 

The program hired some people to help out with the kids.  Working with them on art projects showed me how they used the projects to communicate with the children. 

 

Patience is a virtue.  Family Foundations helps you remember that.  I see how other parents do it and I realize sometimes I should more go with the flow. 

 

In this aspect of its work, Family Foundations uses the approach common in family support programs, which favor modeling of behavior over relying primarily or exclusively on instructional classes and workshops to improve parenting skills. 

 

• Family Foundations made good progress in encouraging members to become involved in community affairs, mainly in schools and school issues. 

 

Several interviewees talked about how Family Foundations had changed their relationships with their children’s schools:

 

I’m a whole lot more involved in school issues than I used to be.  I’ve heard a lot from people about charter schools.  Family Foundations helped me become more active about choosing. 

 

I go to school programs and volunteer when I can.  I wasn’t doing that much before Family Foundations.  People said, “You’ve got to get more involved in the school.”

 

I’ve always been involved in my daughter’s school, but now I advocate for myself more.  And with volunteering, sometimes I take the initiative; I don’t wait for an invitation to help. 

 

The program managers note that Cohort 2 parents have become a significant presence at the Khamit School, where most had children enrolled during the Family Foundations grant period.  “Before Family Foundations, there would be a school meeting and it wasn’t definite that you could get x number of parents,” recalls one of the managers.  “Maybe two or three would show up.  Now it’s known that you can get a good group. Over the last two months, Khamit has been averaging 13 to 20 parents a meeting.”  According to the manager, Family Foundations members form a core group of attendees, encouraging other parents to join them.  Similarly, she says, Cohort 2 parents are taking the lead in volunteering at the school. She speculates that one dynamic that encourages the activism of Family Foundation parents at Khamit is that since they are already accustomed to discussing issues with one another in a public setting, they are comfortable speaking out at school meetings.  

Khamit is a charter school, and the Institute for Transformation of Learning, which endorses families’ options to enroll children in traditional, choice, charter or home school settings,  is part of the school choice movement. Thus, it is not surprising that some of participants’ interest in their children’s schooling has centered on school choice issues. Several Cohort 2 parents spoke out at City Council meetings that focused on possible loss of funding to charter schools, and  Family Foundations parents have participated in symposiums sponsored by the Black Alliance for Educational Options (BAEO).  Recently six participants joined the program managers in attending a BAEO out-of-state conference on school choice. 

Aside from schools and school issues, two participants have organized block clubs, and one started a playgroup in her neighborhood.  In one small sign of the kind of crossover between Family Foundations and other Milwaukee Making Connections activities that was of interest to program planners, two participants wrote proposals for and were awarded small grants under the Milwaukee Making Connections Small Grants Initiative, which supported local projects to strengthen families. ^[5]

Several Family Foundations members played important roles in a “Families as Experts” symposium for service providers and agency heads, which was sponsored by New Concept Self Development Center.  They contributed to the event by planning and facilitating 90-minute workshop presentations, with included question-and-answer sessions with the audience.   The planning involved six to eight hours of work. ^[6]

 

• Family Foundations helped parents explore and advance toward new personal and career goals.   

 

At the first retreat, staff judged that a hike through the nearby … woods at night would be ill advised, given that most families were unfamiliar with the countryside.  But at the second retreat, the staff invited everyone on a moonlight hike after dinner.  The children were interested in going and had a great time but none of the adults wanted to participate.  When staff invited families to go on a night hike on the third retreat, however, trust in each other and the countryside had developed to the point where all of the parents as well as the children enjoyed a beautiful walk in the countryside in the moonlight.

 

from the final 2000 progress report on Cohort 1 submitted to the Casey Foundation

 

Project managers observe that the change in confidence levels illustrated by this story is mirrored by growth and change for participants on several different fronts.  One area of change was in personal and career goals.  With the encouragement of Family Foundations, one participant received a full scholarship to move from a technical to a four-year college to finish her degree, while another is pursuing a GED. A former welfare recipient has found a job in the school her children attends, where she is considered one of the institution’s most dedicated employees.  One parent bought a house and enrolled in a technical college, where she intends to develop a plan for a small business. A second parent developed a business plan to submit to a bank, (although new personal responsibilities have recently kept him from pursuing this activity.)  Finally, as noted earlier, one participant became the Family/School/Community Advocate for Family Foundations. 

Interviewees described how the project had helped them think about new directions for their lives:

 

We discussed how we can help each other out.  My sister is looking to buy her own house and I learned about how she can clean up her credit.  Another lady talked about how she runs her own business from her own house. So we got new ideas of what we can do. 

 

At the retreats we had a Women’s Circle and a Men’s Circle, and everyone had a chance to talk about what’s on their minds… We discussed what we saw ourselves doing 10 years from now. 

 

My personal goals have changed.  I’m thinking more about bettering my education. …  [The project manager] … knows a lot of people and that helps point us in the right direction. 

 

Being part of Family Foundations brought out a lot in me.  I used to be someone who would sit way in the back.  Now having people listen to me has motivated me a lot.

 

Family Foundations gave me an opportunity to get out and meet people. And it helped me find out who to contact to solve a problem.    

 

As these remarks suggest, an important key to the program’s efforts to foster personal growth was the way in which it drew the participants into new networks.  There was the network of friends – particularly valuable because, in the same way that a number of participants had been disconnected from school or community affairs, some had been quite isolated from peers. As one interviewee described her circumstances, “Before Family Foundations I had people I spoke to, but not friends.  I was too busy.” Besides informal contact, the women’s circles, which several of the interviewees said they particularly appreciated, seem to have been important in solidifying the friendship networks.    

There was also the network of community contacts. By bringing parents together under the auspices of a community program, Family Foundations could teach or remind parents that an important part of setting and pursuing personal goals was to turn to neighbors and local institutions as resources for problem solving. 

 

• Although families were offered structured activities, the approach to setting and carrying out the program agenda was collaborative. 

 

Participants were encouraged to assume as much responsibility as possible for Family Foundation activities.  The managers recall that one small early sign that Cohort 1 participants were taking ownership of the program is that after the first retreat the parents decided that rather than eating food prepared for them, they would cook the meals for these weekends themselves.  Parents also quickly stepped in to help with substantive activities. A parent committee planned the workshops and parents were part of the team

to select an alternative location for retreats when the first one became unavailable.  Now that the formal program  period is over, some parents have taken the lead in suggesting and helping to arrange inexpensive outings to which all former participants are invited.

Four Cohort 1 and 2 parents and two young people are “mentoring” the new Family Pyramids program by recruiting participants, and attending orientations where they talk about their experiences in Family Foundations. “Family Foundations members have become the salespeople for the program,” says one of its managers.  She notes that recently her colleague went to a school administrator to ask that the school become a Family Pyramids site, but that the administrator became fully convinced that the program would benefit the school only after he had also talked to a former Family Foundations participant, who gave him a highly articulate account of what the program had meant to her. 

 

Conclusions

 

·        Conclusions based on written materials on a program and selective interviews cannot be definitive.  However, the review of the Family Foundations experience presented in this paper sheds some light on the following issues about the program and its potential: 

The program allowed participants to take advantage of recreational experiences, outings, retreats, lectures and discussions in a highly positive group setting.  The success of these activities suggests that it is feasible to operate a program that provides these benefits.

More important, there are good indications that Family Foundations led to immediate positive changes in the lives of participants:  The testimony of interviewees indicates that Family Foundations members made new friends and connections, exercised collaborative and leadership skills in defining and shaping the activities of a group they cared about, and took advantage of opportunities to reflect on personal goals and examine their parenting behavior. 

Some interviewees also took steps to become more involved in their children’s schooling and in other community affairs, suggesting that the program was on the right track in its efforts to cultivate leadership.  It should be noted, however, that we cannot pinpoint how much difference Family Foundations actually made in participants’ leadership activities, even in the short run. There is always the possibility that certain parents would have become engaged in community activities even if they had not participated, and as noted, some participants were already attuned to community issues when they joined the program.  Only an experimental research study, which would match individuals of the same levels of community experience and compare outcomes for those who did and did not take part in the program, could answer the question of what level of contribution it made to community involvement. 

Family Foundations used a number of promising practices that should be considered both for other similar initiatives and for related efforts to strengthen families and communities.  Key practices were:

v     relying on  the sense of comfort and connection associated with membership in a supportive extended family as the initial incentive  for participants to take new action in their own lives and in their communities

v     combining recreational with more issue-oriented activities not only within the overall menu of program events, but within each individual retreat and workshop

v     including children as well as parents in all program events, while making it possible for adults to meet in separate sessions for part of most sessions

v     offering parents the convenience of pre-planned activities, while giving them sufficient autonomy to help shape events

v     giving parents access to new networks of resources and information

v     relying on modeling and peer interaction as the primary means of parent education

v     giving women and men opportunities to discuss personal and family issues

in same-sex groups

v     immersing participants quickly in weekend-long events that encouraged them to form a cohesive group

 

As noted, interviewees expressed strong satisfaction with the program and had virtually no suggestions for improvement.  The program managers observe that the main practice they found they needed changing was the Cohort 1 recruitment strategy of targeting a number of different schools. 

From a perspective outside the program, it is possible to envision several variations on Family Foundations that would keep most of its basic structure intact.  For example, Family Foundations could:

 

v     operate with a much more explicit expectation that as part of joining the program, parents would become active in the community in the years following their enrollment;

v     limit recruitment to parents with minimal or no experience working in the community;

v     focus recruitment on especially fragile families

 

The first two options perhaps define Family Foundations more sharply as a “leadership development” project – although there naturally is no guarantee that a program that took these approaches would equal or improve upon long-term leadership outcomes that will eventually emerge from the current version of Family Foundations. The second option -- making certain that the program worked only with parents with only a minimal past record of community affairs involvement -- could reduce any concern that changes in community engagement were not attributable to the intervention.  However, limiting participation in this way might also deprive the program of the peer influence that can occur when parents with more experience in community affairs model behavior for fellow participants. 

The third option would likely lengthen the odds of surfacing sustained community leadership, but it might provide personal benefits to a group of families who are on average needier than the Cohort 1 and 2 participants.

Given what is now known about Family Foundations, none of the options point to a direction that seems imperative to take.  Rather, they throw into sharper relief the choices that were made – first, to allow the expectation of community leadership to emerge from the program experience rather than making it a firm condition of joining; second, to recruit families without a preconceived notion of the levels of personal problems and experiences in the community they should bring to the program; and finally, to allow the composition of the group to mirror the predominance of African-Americans in the target area.

 

• Whether Family Foundations accomplished what it set out to do

 

It is too early to assess whether and to what extent Family Foundations will reach two of its goals – encouraging local leadership with staying power, and helping to develop “long-term and permanent family strengths.”  What does now seem quite clear is that over the shorter term the program succeeded in creating caring communities of parents. In addition, evidence presented in this paper suggests that participants felt a sense of ownership of  Family Foundations, as they collaborated in planning its activities; that they were very comfortable in bringing “who they were” to the program; and that the program encouraged them to think through parenting issues and to become more involved in their children’s schooling. For all of these reasons, the individual approaches and strategies used in Family Foundations merit further study and consideration.  Even more important, practitioners and policymakers interested in community-building may be able to learn from a program that through informality and intimacy was able to create a supportive and positive culture for families.