overview | objectives | sessions
 
Fall 2001


   

  


  1. Understand communities and families as complex systems, and the multiple determinants of family and community well being.

  2. Understand the history of community development and the emergence of the new field of family-centered community building.

  3. Appreciate a systems approach to community building that creates a new vision for community change and a set of strategies designed to communicate that new vision, governance and leadership.

  4. Develop an understanding of productive ways to revitalize communities through the promotion of family well being, by creatively addressing challenges facing families including:

    • Jobs and workplace environments that value the contribution of family members and respect their family needs;

    • Early childhood and school readiness programs that launch each child on an optimal life long trajectory;

    • Health care, child care, and elder care programs that support families in all of their care giving roles;

    • Schools that can serve as life long learning centers in communities- beginning with comprehensive child development and school readiness programs and extending through programs that involve elders as teachers and life long learners, and everything in between;

    • Youth development and civic engagement programs that create valuable after school activities for young people, and make a strong connection between young people and the roles they will assume as members of their community;

    • Community infrastructure to support clean water, clean air, roads and transportation systems, and parks and open space, in order to enhance the natural and built environments, as important components of a "livable community";

    • Cross- generational programs to build the caring relationships that both elders and young children need;

    • Community change and transformation strategies that build upon relationships within and between families to empower change form neighborhood to neighborhood; and

    • Community report cardsreports, community youth charters, community assessments of developmental assets, and other monitoring strategies so that community residents can be informed about the well being of their community , can use this information to develop strategies for community building, and can also hold their elected officials more accountable.

  1. Appreciate the nature of the evidence needed to add to knowledge about family-centered community building, to engage the interest of media in such systems change, and to influence policy makers to support such change

    • Evaluation tools and strategies that afford proof that community building efforts are effective, that improve such efforts, and that increase the capacity of community members—of families and the individuals within them—to sustain and bring such work to scale.

    • Empowerment approaches to evaluation.

    • Understanding that such approaches constitute second-order interventions that enhanceUnderstandings that such approaches constitute second-order interventions that enhance community capacity to envision and enact valued activities linked to healthier families and communities

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Murfreesboro, TN 37132
famcom@mtsu.edu