VISION AND VALUES FOR CHILD AND FAMILY WELLNESS

I. Introduction

Children are to be seen, but not heard! Women are not fit for politics! Jews are to blame for the ills of the world! Every culture has its own prejudice and misconceptions. Just like these opening statements were believed by people for decades if not for centuries, our culture has its own myths: We could never invest in social programs as much as Sweden does! We don't know enough yet to launch programs to reduce risk factors for children and families! Family matters are private and the state should not intervene in family affairs! Certain notions, such as these, gain currency in society without much reflection.

Unless we have a clear set of values, we run the risk of perpetuating myths and misconceptions that harm children and families. By applying a set of values, we could challenge the received wisdom of these statements. We could show, for instance, that Canada or the United States have more comparative national wealth than Sweden, but that they have less regard for the value of distributive justice and this is why they don't invest more in children and families. Policy decisions are not always a matter of resources, but of value priorities.

Government policies suffer from contradictions. Whereas some policies dictate that we invest in prevention, others order the elimination of social programs designed to do just that: prevention. Child welfare and mental health workers know that child abuse derives from family dynamics as much as from social and economic factors, yet most interventions focus on the mother and neglect systemic forces that contribute to abuse. Contradictions abound. This is why we need to pause and reflect on the values that drive our programs and policies.

By vision we refer to a desirable state of affairs for children and families. A vision may include opportunities for children to develop their potential, or a family atmosphere of cohesion and mutual support. A positive vision is an end state in which abuse and neglect no longer occur. Values, in turn, are the principles that guide our actions toward a vision. Values steer the process of working toward an outcome. Box 1 contains three definitions that reflect our conception of values.

II. The Role of Values in Child and Family Wellness

Austria, 1940s, doctors kill children with disabilities to examine their brains. Brazil, 1980s, off-duty police execute street children because they are considered a public nuisance. United States, 1990, the US Advisory Board on Child Abuse and Neglect declares society's lack of response to the crisis of child abuse a national moral disaster. Canada, 1989, The House of Commons passes a resolution which seeks "to achieve the goal of eliminating poverty among Canadian children by the year 2000." Canada, 1997, the number of children living in poverty reaches almost a million and a half, 500,000 more than in 1989, an increase of 58 percent. Children's rights are violated everywhere because children have no vote and no power. No vote, no voice; no voice, no power; no power, no rights.

Children, no doubt the most vulnerable members of society, have no social movement to advance their cause. Unlike other groups claiming their legitimate rights, such as seniors, labour, women, and ethnic minorities, children are political orphans. Until adults embrace their plight seriously, children will continue to suffer from blatant as well as subtle forms of abuse. The role of values in child and family wellness is to ensure that our actions reflect the needs of children, parents, and the community at large. Values can inform our personal, civic, and professional actions to promote children's rights. Box 2 points to six benefits of having a clear set of values.

The values we choose to promote child and family wellness should derive from the needs and lived experience of children, parents, and community members, as much as from moral thinking. Box 3 lists the criteria that should be employed in selecting values for child and family wellness.

III. Basic Values for the Promotion of Child and Family Values

Based on the criteria listed in Box 3, we constructed a framework of values for the promotion of family wellness. Our framework relies on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and on extensive consultations we conducted with stakeholders of the child welfare system, primarily across Canada, but in other countries as well, including the United States, Israel, England, Ghana, Cuba, Holland, Belgium, Denmark, and Sweden. The composition of our values is informed by other sources as well; including the lived experience of families in the child welfare system and statements produced by policy makers, child advocates, practitioners and academics.

Values for Personal, Collective, and Relational Wellness

A content analysis of our data reveals the presence of seven main values. These are briefly presented in Table 1. As the table shows, the values can be classified into three categories: (a) values for personal wellness (self-determination, education and personal development, caring and protection of health), (b) values for collective wellness

(social justice, support for strong community structures), and (c) values for relational wellness (collaboration and respect for the community and respect for human diversity). These categories reflect very well the need for balance between individual and social goods, as well as the necessity of having mediational values for people to co-exist peacefully. Our findings show that there is a dialectic between personal and collective values, and that one kind cannot exist without the other. What is often missed in the literature and nicely captured in our findings is the absolute necessity to have the third kind of values, relational values, that ensure the pursuit of private goals in harmony with the objectives of others. Neither personal nor collective wellness can exist without mechanisms for bridging the gap between what one person or group want and what other members of society desire.

Values should both reflect and meet certain needs. Table 1 shows the needs that are addressed by each value.

The Relationship Between Needs, Values, and Ecological Levels of Wellness

We saw in Table 1 how values promote personal, collective, and relational wellness. In a similar vein, we can see how the seven values promote child, parental, family, community, and social wellness. Table 2 marks the connection between the needs and values required to achieve wellness at different ecological levels.

The Role of Values in Programs and Policies

Values can promote the needs of individual children and parents, of groups like families and communities, and of entire societies. But in addition to that, values can also inform programs and policies designed to promote wellness. Table 3 provides examples of how personal, collective, and relational values can be actualized in programs and policies to advance child and family wellness.

Table 1

Basic Values for the Promotion of Child and Family Wellness

Table 2

The Relationship Between Selected Values, Needs, and Ecological Levels of Wellness

Table 3

The Actualization of Values in Programs and Policies

IV. The Role of Change Agents in Promoting Child and Family Values

Seeking a Balance Between Personal and Collective Values

Value identification is important, but it is only the first step in promoting child and family wellness. Establishing an equilibrium between personal and collective values is the next step. This task requires an analysis of our culture. Once we realize what moral principles we favour and what values we ignore, we can take corrective action. If we have veered too far in the direction of personal values, we can take action to recover collective ideals. If we have neglected personal freedoms, we should moderate collectivist tendencies that suppress individual liberties. Therefore, it is incumbent upon change agents to nurture this balance between values for personal and collective wellness.

Using Values to Promote Child and Family Wellness

Values should be guides for action. Improving child and family wellness entails the reduction of risk and the enhancement of protective factors, the promotion of empowering processes and the elimination of disempowering processes, and the pursuit of a balance between personal and collective values. These tasks are carried out by parents, teachers, school administrators, cultural workers, professionals, community helpers, employers, policy-makers, legislators, and advocates, to name but a few. Virtually every member of society, perhaps with the exception of highly dependent individuals, has the potential to act as an agent of prevention and promotion. Table 4 offers a synopsis of value-driven interventions by a sample of change agents.

Values, Commitment, and Accountability

For the purpose of becoming more accountable to ourselves and to children, we propose a checklist of personal value interventions. Table 5 asks to what extent our personal, professional, and political actions reflect the seven key values of child wellness. If a particular value is promoted to a satisfactory degree, we can ask ourselves what we can do to maintain it. If a value is not promoted to a satisfactory degree, we can ask what we can do to enact it.

We invite you to examine your work in light of family wellness values. We encourage you to ask to what extent does your work reflect the ideals of caring and protection of health, personal growth, children's rights, collaboration and respect for others, diversity, support for community structures, and social justice.

Table 4

The Role of Change Agents in Promoting Child and Family Wellness

Table 5

Questions for Assessing the Values of Programs, Practices and Policies in Family Wellness

Self-determination Do they promote the ability of children and adults to pursue their chosen goals without excessive frustration and in consideration of other people's needs?

Human diversity Do they promote respect and appreciation for diverse social identities?

Collaboration and Do they promote peaceful, respectful, and equitable

respect for the community processes whereby children and adults can have meaningful input into decisions affecting their lives?

Education and personal development Do they promote educational and personal growth?

Support for strong community Do they promote vital community structures that

structures facilitate the pursuit of personal and communal goals?

Provision of resources based Do they promote the fair and equitable allocation of

on social justice bargaining powers, obligations, and resources in society?