Nurturing the One, Supporting the Many: The Center for Family Life in Sunset Park, Brooklyn / Edition 1

by Peg Hess, Brenda McGowan, Michael Botsko

Overview

Since its establishment in 1978 the Center for Family Life has been an integral source of assistance to immigrant families in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, a community struggling with poverty, unemployment, health issues, drug-related problems, youth gang activity, a housing shortage, and oversubscribed schools. This book is a narrative of the development of the Center and its relations with the surrounding community.

With its unique combination of community-rootedness and clinical sophistication, the Center serves as a programmatic model for other family service contexts. Underlying the Center's programs and the staff's interactions with families is a philosophy and theoretical orientation that embraces clients in a shared sense of responsibility for change, focuses on all family members and on families as systems, and emphasizes the developmental and the expressive.

Almost 30% of the community's children and youth are participating in one or more Center services over the course of a year. Such services include after-school childcare, summer camp, creative and performing arts programs, recreation, youth development and parent education, employment programs for adults and youth, comprehensive emergency services to meet family needs for food, clothing, and financial assistance; individual, family, and group counseling; and neighborhood foster care. The authors supply case studies and supporting theoretical material, and discuss the implications for professional practice, education, research, and policy that can be derived from studying the Center's experience.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780231115957
Publisher:	Columbia University Press
Publication date:	01/23/2003
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Currently on leave from the faculty of the Columbia University School of Social Work where she served for seven years as associate dean, Dr. Peg Hess is Associate Director for Research and Scholarship at the Institute for Families in Society at the University of South Carolina. Brenda McGowan (D.S.W., Columbia University) is Ruth Harris Ottman Professor of Family and Child Welfare at the School of Social Work at Columbia University. She has written numerous articles on family preservation. Michael Botsko (Ph.D., Columbia University, School of Social Work) is the Senior Program Evaluation Associate for Bailey House in New York City and a former consultant for the Court-Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) for New York.

Table of Contents

Foreword, by Susan P. Kemp
Acknowledgments
Introduction: The Center for Family Life and Its Programs
1. Building a Family-Focused Community-Centered Program: Commitments, Philosophies, and Interests
2. The Development of the Center in the Context of Child Welfare Policy and Programming
3. The Core: Family Counseling Services or "The Preventive Program"
4. The Neighborhood Foster Care Program
5. Supporting Families, Building Community, and Developing Children and Youth: The Community School Programs
6. Supporting Family and Community Development
7. Lessons Learned from the Center for Family Life in Sunset Park
Appendix A: Study Design and Methodology
Appendix B: Instruments Modified or Created for This Study
Appendix C: Initial and Final FAF Scores
Sources Cited
Index

Editorial Reviews

[T]his book should be read by all social work practitioners if for no other reason than to get a taste of what a true community-centered agency looks like; one that supports its staff and clients, believes in on-going development of practice through open dialogue and consistent supervision, and looks first to the needs of the community members when developing and implementing programs over the ever-shifting dictates of local, state and federal policies and programs.

Social Work with Groups - Mary C. Bitel

[T]his book should be read by all social work practitioners if for no other reason than to get a taste of what a true community-centered agency looks like; one that supports its staff and clients, believes in on-going development of practice through open dialogue and consistent supervision, and looks first to the needs of the community members when developing and implementing programs over the ever-shifting dictates of local, state and federal policies and programs.

— Mary C. Bitel

Social Work with Groups

Nurturing the One, Supporting the Many is an informative and touching book.

Journal of Community Practice