What is Family Strengthening?
Every family faces challenges; some more than others. Families facing poverty, displacement, disability, abuse, or trauma can quickly find themselves at risk of separation. At the same time, families providing alternative care through kinship or foster placements often need additional support to ensure children can thrive.
Family strengthening is a strength-based approach that helps families build the capacity to meet their children’s needs and create stable, nurturing environments. Rather than focusing on what’s wrong, family strengthening focuses on what’s strong. It is designed to encourage resiliency and provide protective measures to keep children with their families in a safe and nurturing environment.
Because every family’s circumstances are unique, family strengthening interventions are individualized and guided by the child’s best interests.
How does it prevent unnecessary family separation?
Family strengthening services address the root causes of vulnerability, helping families build resilience and independence so every child can grow up in a safe, loving, and nurturing family environment.
While some services are delivered at the community level, CERI’s family strengthening approach centers on individualized case management and case planning. Case managers work alongside children and caregivers to assess needs, connect families with services, and monitor progress over time.
These services can include livelihood support, mental health support, food and agricultural support, access to education and daycare, parent education and support groups, spiritual support, and cash transfers. Families may also receive referrals to services such as healthcare, legal aid, counseling, vocational training, education, and life-skills development.
By strengthening protective factors within families and communities, family strengthening reduces the risk of abandonment, neglect, and unnecessary family separation. Ultimately, it helps ensure that children grow up safely in family care, where they can thrive and reach their full potential.
What it looks like:
Grace, a single mother of 5, struggled to make ends meet. Grace and her children had no legal identification or formal education, putting them at risk of continuing the intergenerational cycle of poverty.
Through CERI South Africa’s family strengthening support and services, Grace obtained legal identification for herself and her children, allowing them to finally attend school. Additionally, CERI partnered with the local government to build a new home for Grace, providing her family with a comfortable and safe space to live.
After losing both parents, Kannan and Shana were taken in by their great uncle, who struggled to support them.
With help from CERI Sri Lanka, the family received case management services, monthly stipends, emotional support, home repairs, and other resources to ensure Kannan and Shana flourished under their uncle’s care.
