The history of the Family Support and Strengthening field in the United States goes back more than 100 years to the establishment of settlement houses in the late 1800s in major metropolitan areas such as Boston, New York, Chicago, and San Francisco. These settlement houses provided the large number of immigrants entering the country at that time with support, respect for their original cultures, job training, English classes, and social advocacy as a means to assist them in understanding, adapting to, and succeeding in American society.

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Family Support as a term first emerged in the late 1970’s to describe welcoming local programs designed to support parents with young children through a variety of resources and services. As the modern version of settlement houses, these programs are voluntary and available for all families, many on a “drop-in” basis where parents do not need to sign up or pay for the opportunity to participate.

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As previously defined by Family Support America, Family Support is all of the following:

• An approach to strengthening families and communities so that they can foster the optimal development of children, youth, and adult family members.

• A type of grassroots, community-based program designed to prevent family problems by strengthening parent-child relationships and providing whatever parents need in order to be good nurturers and providers.

• A shift in human services delivery that encourages public and private agencies to work together and to become more preventative, responsive, flexible, family-focused, strengths-based, and holistic – and thus more effective.

• A movement for social change that urges policymakers, service providers, parents, and employers to take responsibility for improving the lives of children and families and ensuring they get what they need to succeed.
   

Family Support is based on the premise that the primary responsibility for the development and well-being of children lies within the family, and that all segments of society must support families as they raise their children. Family Support services include a broad array of activities designed to strengthen families. They help parents to raise their children successfully, to become self-sufficient, and to take an active role in their communities.

 

The definitive history of the Family Support field authored by Judy Langford of the Center for the Study of Social Policy can be found here.