Defining Poverty
Poverty encompasses more than insufficient income – it represents a lack of access to health care and decent paying jobs, inadequate education and poor nutrition.
This paper describes a new way of thinking about families raising children in low-income communities. This new premise of "family strengthening," championed by the Casey Foundation, is that children do well when families do well, and that families do well when they live in supportive communities. This brief outlines how enhancing connections within families, and between families, and the institutions that affect them result in better outcomes for children and their families, and how this new way of thinking can influence public policy.
The family-centered approach to family strengthening empowers families to be the leaders in nurturing their children. Parents, family members and neighborhood residents work in partnership with service providers and community agencies to decide what is necessary to address local needs and concerns in a way that builds on local resources and community strength.