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 Letter
from the Director
Melinda S. Forthofer, PhD
Fall
2006
Dear
Colleagues and Friends of the Institute for Families in Society,
Families
face a myriad of challenges in today’s fast-paced society:
An
expectant mother struggles to obtain early and regular prenatal care.
Parents
of young children are forced to make hard choices between cost and
quality in selecting child care environments.
School
age children encounter risks related to sex, drugs and violence.
Adolescents
are bombarded with messages about the importance of weight management
in communities that devote more space to fast food drive-through lanes
than to safe walking trails.
Families
become discouraged in their attempts to navigate the maze of a costly
and often fragmented health care system for basic preventative care,
and the specialized services needed for family members with unique
health care needs are even more difficult to access.
The
“baby boom” generation finds itself sandwiched between the demands
of supporting adolescent and young adult children and those of caring
for aging parents.
And
throughout it all, far too many families reside in inadequate living
conditions. That’s the
bad news about families.
The
good news is that the family has proven itself to be one of the most
adaptive and resilient social institutions in modern history. For
decades, scholars and policy makers have argued over whether the
importance of the family is eroding over time. Behind the scenes, in
research from across the health and social sciences, evidence that the
social environment and social relationships make unique contributions
in health and social outcomes has been steadily mounting. Much remains
to be done to refine and translate these discoveries into tools that
families and the organizations that support families can use.
 We
at the Institute for Families in Society are proud and fortunate to
call this area of inquiry our own. Through a balance of action
research, education, technical assistance, and consultation at
community, state, national, and international levels, our
cross-cutting agenda focuses on discovering pathways for reducing
disparities, promoting social justice, and accelerating the
translation of research into effective, culturally competent policies
and practices. Whether we are collaborating with the state’s
Medicaid program to increase the accessibility and affordability of
health care, designing and testing programs to enhance the capacity of
noncustodial fathers, translating advances in the science of early
childhood development into high quality child care settings, or any of
the other rewarding scientific and programmatic activities that we
engage in, we are part of what makes it possible for families to
thrive in an ever-shifting landscape.
I
invite you to visit our website and/or contact us to learn more about
us – our team of scholars, our exciting initiatives, and the many
fulfilling opportunities to partner with us in the journey ahead.
Melinda
S. Forthofer, PhD
Director
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