Skip to main content

Family Strengthening Model

The Annie E. Casey Foundation defines family strengthening as “a deliberate process of giving parents the necessary opportunities, relationships, networks, and supports to raise their children successfully, which includes involving parents as decision-makers in how their communities meet family needs.”
 
The Family Strengthening Model is bigger than a particular program, strategy, or service – it is a framework for helping families succeed. There are three key parts to this framework:
 
  1. Family Economic Success – Helping Families improve self sufficiency through expanded opportunities to work earn a living wage that provides for the basic needs of the family, and build assets that grow with the family over time, such as home ownership and retirement accounts.
  2. Family Support Systems – Building appropriate and adequate systems of support for healthy family development that encompass health care, child care, education, and other essential components of strong families.
  3. Thriving and Nurturing Communities – Building a nurturing and supportive environment in which healthy families can pursue long term goals. Components for family success include access to affordable housing, strong neighborhood institutions, safe streets, supportive social networks, and an environment that promotes community and strengthens bonds between families.
Furthermore, the model recognizes the strengths of families and communities and builds on them.
 
Programs that reflect this approach vary, but there are common characteristics:
·         Family Centered: Services intentionally address the needs of the family as a whole. Services are tailored to help the individual in the context of the family and community.
·         Place Based: Families are supported to thrive within the context of their neighborhoods and broader communities. Job opportunities are created by utilizing economic resources and the vast social networks prevalent in one’s community. Families are able to access public services comfortably and without stigmatization in their own neighborhoods.
·         Collaborative: Partnerships are created across service systems such as health, education, or workforce development; community based organizations; local government; business and employers; and faith communities to create a seamless web of services.
·         Focused on Family Self-Sufficiency: Strengthening the capacity of families to function effectively is emphasized so that families become more capable of carrying out their responsibilities.
·         Accountable to Families: Practitioners actively engage families in the decision and goal-making process to set goals and determine outcomes so that services are individually tailored, culturally responsive, and relevant to the specific needs of the family.
·         Preventative and Promotional: Services and intervention are provided at the “front end” to prevent problems rather than the “back end” when families reach crisis and may require more costly crisis intervention and treatment.
 
In contrast to more traditional social service approaches, the Family Strengthening Model offers assistance in meeting basic needs and securing special services, is flexible in the delivery of services, responds quickly and flexibly to family and community needs, and builds on family and community strengths.