ASSISTING FAMILIES: WHAT IS THE ROLE OF GOVERNMENT

Dr. Shelba Branscum is ~Associate Professor of Human Environmental Studies at Southeast Missouri State University. She is a Marriage and Family specialist. Janet Shepard is~ a graduate assistant in the Department of Human Environmental Studies. She is a Family Life major.

Before examinin~g the priority policy issues and the role the government should be playing to help the family, one must have a clear idea of what the family unit has been and is today~.

The family unit is a magnificent creation~. Of all the social organizations designed, utili~zed and employed by humans, not one can surpass the adaptability, flexibility and endurance of the family. Unfortunately, most people do not comprehend the ability of the family to reorganize at a minutes notice or its capability to soften the effects of a major crisis.

Families will continue to thrive

Families have and will continue not only to survive but to thrive. ~As the world has changed, the family has changed. In fact, throughout history the nature of the family and the roles within the family have been constantly changing.

Some family units endure better than others, and some family units are clearly at a higher ~risk than others. Family units are composed of an assortment of unique, very different and very vulnerable individuals. Those families that endure are the families who manage and utilize whatever resources they have at their disposal so that each family member is able to ~grow, develop and function.~

Unfortunately the media, politicians and popular culture only seem to recognize the frailties of the family unit, quickly surmising that "the death of the family is at hand." This is absurd because it is the potential for survival, not the potential for demise, that has made the family unit eternal.

A delicate balance

Resource availability, accessibility and management are the fulcrum on which the quality of life balances~. Thus, resource availability, accessibility and management are THE priority policy issues for families. ~

A family is a delicately balanced system in which all functional change must be initiated from within. Public policy cannot dictate what families are or what they are supposed to look like or to act like. Public policy must not invade the internal workings of the family but must rather provide the family with the kinds of resources that allow families to ~develop and function. Since families must exist for long periods of times, short-run ~Band-Aids are not appropriate resource investments.

"Plug and Patch" does not work

Prevention, not crisis management, has to become the priority within public policy decisions at all levels. The past five decades of family public policy have centered around the "plug and patch philosophy" and have obviously not worked. The right kind of resources must be~~ provided at critical periods for the purpose of creating an independent, functioning unit in society. Maintaining a ~~resource delivery system that prolongs dependency throughout the ~generations to come is simply a form of "plug and patch."~

Programs that work

Examples ~of the kinds of resources that nurture independence and self-sufficiency are found within the community and are logistically close to the families.

Community-based support groups, employment training and retraining, educational and vocational accessibility, social service programs that limit the time and degree of assistance and are based upon the families ability and motivation to become self sufficient should be top public policy priorities. On-site child care and elder care programs along with parent and family-crisis-leave should be built into employee benefits.

Educational programs and parent training for teenage parents is an additional top priority program. The important key to establishing family public policy is the ~"independency and self-sufficiency" test. If these two requirements are not met, the government investment will result in further waste.

Clearly, families are units of survival. Public policy and government intervention must~ not destroy the family unit, but instead, must nurture and extend its capabilities.