Promoting the family by thinking small
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While most people who want to protect and promote the family in the United States today think big, one of the nation's top family advocates told hundreds gathered recently at BYU that much can also be accomplished by thinking small.
Offering the keynote address at the BYU Family Outreach Conference March 11, Dawn Cassidy, certification director for the National Council on Family Relations, retold the popular story of a man walking along the beach throwing starfish into the ocean. An observer asked the man why he was involved in an such a fruitless effort, as he could never make a difference because of the vast amount of starfish. The man replied, "I made a difference to that one."
So goes, said Ms. Cassidy, the story of family life education, where advocates must decide how best to make a difference when there are "so many families in need."
Much of family life education, she continued, is accomplished "one family at a time."
The BYU School of Family Life, the Division of Continuing Education and the Provo-based Family Life Education Institute co-sponsored the one-day conference focused on the many ways citizens can better strengthen the institutions of marriage and the family within their own communities.
Held in the BYU Conference Center, the event was a forum in which participants could learn better ways to answer the call of The Family: A Proclamation to the World, "to promote those measures designed to maintain and strengthen the family."
While the conference was attended by professionals in family relationships and other fields, it was also meant to reach individuals of varying backgrounds who share an interest in strengthening families in informal ways.
The conference featured a plenary panel, breakout sessions conducted by family advocates working and serving in various realms, displays of existing family-strengthening efforts and "how-to" learning on a range of topics, from finding the right resources to reaching families.
During her address Ms. Cassidy praised BYU for its work to promote strong families and spoke of the challenges of increasing awareness and understanding of family life education.
She spoke of what can be accomplished as advocates help bring family life education to the forefront, encouraging students to study family life education and finding ways for them to be employed as family life educators once they do.
"Family life education does make a difference in the lives of children, parents, mothers and fathers," she said. "It is just about unmet needs."
Some of society's problems can be solved as people become better parents and spouses, as they learn about the problems that plague teens and how to combat them. Problems, she said, can be solved, one family at a time.
"We need people on the beaches picking up individual starfish," she said.
E-mail to: sarah@desnews.com
