Assessment of Family Strengths

Assessment of Family Strengths
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Assessment of Family Strengths Report and Response Report Kristin Moore’s co-authored research brief, Family Strengths: Often overlooked, but real makes for a detailed analysis and evaluation of family strengths and their diverse manifestations across different families in the United States. The article’s key objective is to shed light on the often overlooked concept of family strengths in the existing studies and other scholarly works on the American family. According to the author, the limited focus on family strengths across the existing research studies creates a knowledge gap in the overall understanding of the underlying factors characterizing a family’s perceived successes or failures. The existing knowledge gap is evident in the article’s introduction, where the authors admit to the lack of a formal definition of family strengths. However, the authors coin a working definition for the article in that family strengths refer to “the set of relationships and processes that support and protect families and family members, especially during times of adversity and change.” (Moore, 2002). The article then explores the diverse manifestations of family strengths, often used to identify or characterize families as being strong or successful. The authors identify three elements to be the key determinants of family strengths. These elements include the type of interactions among family members, the processes through which they support each other, and their behaviors amidst challenges (Moore, 2002). The article then proceeds to use the outlined determinants to identify and categorize different parameters for measuring the strength of families based on the results of two survey findings on representative samples of the American population. The identified measures of family strengths from the two surveys include parental positive mental health, time use, household routines, communication and praise, monitoring, supervision, involvement, and parent-child warmth and supportiveness (Moore, 2002). Parent-child warmth and supportiveness constitute the elements of positive family relationships, with the other measures falling under the positive family processes. The evaluation of the findings from the two surveys indicates high levels of family strengths among most American families, which correlate to positive outcomes in the wellbeing of children and parents within the family. A parent with good mental health, for instance, reflects in their children’s higher likelihood of carrying out their daily activities such as engagement in school more effectively than kids whose parents have poor mental health. The other measures also indicate positive behavioral outcomes in children across different age groups and development stages in their lives. The authors summarize the article by encouraging the use of the research brief’s findings to carry out further research on family processes and relationships. Response             It is no secret that most research studies and discussions on the family unit in America often emphasize negative aspects such as divorce, domestic abuse and violence, substance abuse, and other social disorderly behaviors. Moore (2002) deviates from this trajectory, opting instead to highlight the underlying factors contributing to the resilience of families amidst life’s challenges to enhance and protect the wellbeing of their members. These factors, also referred to as strengths, play a significant role in determining whether or not families achieve their desired outcomes. An article by Kelly A. Cole and colleagues, Promoting Family Strengths, echoes the importance of these underlying factors in maintaining positive and normal functioning of the family upon facing challenges. However, the first article fails to recognize the existing family diversity across the population and thus limiting the validity of its evaluation of how family strengths manifest in families. It appears to put more emphasis on the traditional family setting and fails to recognize the emergence of postmodern families.             Nevertheless, the identified predictors of family strengths, such as family relatio...