Learning goals

This chapter will enable you to:

1. Understand the key propositions derived by family strengths researchers around the world over the past four decades and see how these ideas can be used to help strengthen families at times of vulnerability

2. Learn about the major qualities of strong families: appreciation and affection, commitment, positive communication, enjoyable time together, spiritual well-being, and the ability to manage stress and crisis effectively

3. See how family strengths, community strengths and cultural strengths interrelate from a global perspective, and how these resources can be used to support vulnerable families in positive ways

4. Find a realistic answer to parents who ask: ‘Is there hope for me and my kids? I did not grow up in a strong family, but a terribly troubled family. Will I be able to parent my children successfully?’

5. Understand how research on family strengths, community strengths and cultural strengths can be applied directly in the lives of individuals and families.

Introduction

Considerable effort around the world over the past four decades has gone into the study of strong families. Motivated by a rising tide of divorce and family disruption in the US in the 1960s and 1970s, researchers began focusing on the broad question of why families fail:

• Why do relationships that begin in love end in divorce?

• Why do parents abuse their children?

• Why do spouses abuse their partner?

• […]