Family Well-Being

The study of family strengths has been pursued by researchers from a variety of disciplines, including psychiatry, sociology, psychology, and family/marriage counseling.

This is a body of research on families that are enduring, cohesive, affectionate, and mutually-appreciative, and in which family members communicate with one another frequently and fruitfully. They are families that raise children who go on to form successful families themselves. They are not necessarily families that are trouble-free.

This collection of brief issue papers uses diverse data to describe 15 major problems facing American children and families. Each paper summarizes the state of knowledge about the scope of the problem, trends, current government expenditures, costs per case, effectiveness of current intervention strategies and public attitudes about the problem areas.