Strong Families: The Cornerstone Of Safe Schools And Communities

One of the most important forms of parental support is quality child care. With more working parents than ever before, communities need to provide reasonably priced day care centers, preschools, and after-school programs. Research clearly indicates that the availability of quality child care helps reduce the likelihood of aggressive behavior and violent acts by young people (Elliott, Williams, & Hamburg, 1998, p. 386). Some schools have begun to provide day care as a way to strengthen families and encourage parents with toddlers to volunteer at school.

Another way that schools and communities can help parents is by offering parent education programs. The relationship between parenting and such youth-related problems as delinquency and aggression is well established (Laub & Lauritsen, 1998). Parents need to understand how to monitor and supervise their children, set limits, provide structure, and respond to inappropriate conduct. Instruction in anger management and conflict resolution helps parents learn to model the kinds of behaviors their children need to acquire in order to handle life's difficulties. Classes on infant stimulation and cognitive development provide parents with tips on how to promote effective learning.

When parents experience problems with their children, they may benefit from various types of outside assistance, including family therapy and parent support groups. It is comforting for parents to know that they are not alone in having problems raising children. One approach to parental assistance with documented effectiveness in reducing the likelihood of youth violence is Functional Family Therapy (FFT). Refined over four decades, FFT targets dysfunctional behaviors in family situations (Alexander, Pugh, & Parsons, 1998). Instead of encouraging reliance on the therapist, FFT focuses on parents and children assuming responsibility for behavior change. The duration of FFT treatment ranges from 8 to 30 hours of family contact.

Kentucky, as part of its omnibus Kentucky Education Reform Act of 1990, established a network of family resource centers designed to serve families with children up to 12 years of age (Smrekar, 1996). A model for communities everywhere, these centers provide full-time child care for two- and three-year-olds, after-school child care for children from 4 to 12, health and education services for new and expectant parents, education to enhance parenting skills, support and training for child day care providers, and health services and referrals. Family resource centers are located at or near schools with relatively high percentages of children from poor families.

An increasing number of secondary schools are housing various services for adolescents. Dental and health care, mental health counseling, and social services are provided at school, thereby relieving working parents of the need to miss work in order to take their children to these providers. Were it not for school-based health facilities, many young people from poor families would not receive any routine or preventive medical attention.

When it is necessary for parents to come to school and meet with counselors and school administrators, extended hours can be of great help to those who work outside the home. Some schools stagger the schedules of counselors, for example, so that the school guidance office is open in the late afternoon and evening. School systems have begun to operate satellite centers in, or send mobile units to, housing projects and poor neighborhoods so that parents and children can receive assistance without having to find transportation to school.