Families With Power

In Fixing Families, Jennifer Reich takes us inside Child Protective Services for an in-depth look at the entire organization. Following families from the beginning of a case to its discharge, Reich shows how parents negotiate with the state for custody of their children, and how being held accountable to the state affects a family.

" We need our neighbors and community to stay healthy, produce jobs, raise our children, and care for those on the margin. Institutions and professional services have reached their limit of their ability to help us. The consumer society tells us that we are insufficient and that we must purchase what we need from specialists and systems outside the community. We have become consumers and clients, not citizens and neighbors. John McKnight and Peter Block show that we have the capacity to find real and sustainable satisfaction right in our neighborhood and community. This book reports on voluntary, self-organizing structures that focus on gifts and value hospitality, the welcoming of strangers. It shows how to reweave our social fabric, especially in our neighborhoods. In this way we collectively have enough to create a future that works for all. "

"What if...? That's the question that began Families with Power/Familias con Poder, a grass-roots organization of low-income students and caregivers in Northampton, MA in 2007. What if the families of students most impacted by the "opportunity gap" somehow had the power to organize whatever activities they felt would best help their children succeed? Mary Cowhey, a teacher who co-founded FWP, shares these stories and the voices of her fellow FWP organizers through vignettes and interviews, weaving in the lessons learned along the way. Inspired by Paulo Freire's popular education and the radical tradition of the Highlander Folk School, some Latina and African mothers, a great-grandmother and a couple of teachers founded Families with Power (FWP). Organizing Family Reading Parties in each other's living rooms (instead of meetings at school) to recruit additional families and identify potential leaders, FWP created a Highlander-style residential retreat that employed Freirean culture circles to pose problems and design programs to address them. Readers will get an inside look at the benefits, successes and challenges of more than a dozen years of student and family engagement in the community and school, tackling issues from academics, race and class to immigration and public health"--

Uses of disability in literature are often problematic and harmful to disabled people. This is also true, of course, in children’s and young adult literature, but interestingly, when disability is paired and confused with adolescence in narratives, compelling, complex arcs often arise. In From Wallflowers to Bulletproof Families: The Power of Disability in Young Adult Narratives, author Abbye E. Meyer examines different ways authors use and portray disability in literature. She demonstrates how narratives about and for young adults differ from the norm. With a distinctive young adult voice based in disability, these narratives allow for readings that conflate and complicate both adolescence and disability. Throughout, Meyer examines common representations of disability and more importantly, the ways that young adult narratives expose these tropes and explicitly challenge harmful messages they might otherwise reinforce. She illustrates how two-dimensional characters allow literary metaphors to work, while forcing texts to ignore reality and reinforce the assumption that disability is a problem to be fixed. She sifts the freak characters, often marked as disabled, and she reclaims the derided genre of problem novels arguing they empower disabled characters and introduce the goals of disability-rights movements. The analysis offered expands to include narratives in other media: nonfiction essays and memoirs, songs, television series, films, and digital narratives. These contemporary works, affected by digital media, combine elements of literary criticism, narrative expression, disability theory, and political activism to create and represent the solidarity of family-like communities.

Embracing the crossroads that made the region distinctive this book reveals how American families have always been characterized by greater diversity than idealizations of the traditional family have allowed. The essays show how family life figured prominently in relations to larger struggles for conquest and control.

What is family time? What value do we place on it? How many families today have time to be families? How do families view, use and seek to control time, and how successful are they at it? The concept of time is central to the study of families and is used in different ways: families changing through history; families experiencing the passage of time as they age over the life course; and families negotiating time for being together. Synthesizing these different concepts into a broad theory of how families understand time, Kerry J Daly examines time as a pervasive influence in the changing experiential world of families.

This funny and heartwarming tale about friends, family and Ferris wheels, shows lots of different families who are all equal. A book for every family, this story gently shows children that it’s wonderfully normal for every family to be different and the things that set us apart can bring us closer. Liam has just one thing on his mind: making it to the Ferris wheel to use his ticket. There’s just time to check out the rest of the funfair, where his friends are playing games, munching popcorn, and going on rides with their families. But when Liam’s Ferris wheel ticket goes missing, it’s a race against time for him and his friends to find it. Will they make it? Featuring bold, colorful illustrations and an inspiring message, toddlers and young children will love reading along and engaging in this story that celebrates all different types of families. A vibrant picture book for children ages 3-5 years old, My Family and Other Families: - Is written by popular parenting bloggers and influencers, Two Dads in London - Shows different types of families with a clear message of diversity, difference and acceptance - Contains a fun and engaging story with plenty of re-read potential - Includes bouncy, child-friendly illustrations from Andy Passchier Grown-ups and little ones can enjoy sharing this sweet and gentle picture book with beautifully vibrant illustrations, spreading the message that all families are equal and are unique in their own way.