Studies have linked poor parenting to crime, poverty and a whole constellation of social ills. So it’s no wonder that civic leaders in cities like Hampton argue that intensively intervening in at-risk families isn’t just a kind idea but a social necessity. The movement started in the early ’90s, when 50 communities across the country began experimenting with “proactive” programs to reach troubled families and individuals before their problems got worse. Today these programs have spread to 260 cities in 38 states and formed a national network called Healthy Families America. Hampton started its project in 1993 and has since taken 500 vulnerable citizens into its program. Deborah Daro, research director of the National Committee to Prevent Child Abuse, which acts as a clearinghouse of information, says, “The beauty of this is that it is generated by the communities.”
Hampton took action because it had become clear by the late 1980s that it could no longer use the same old methods to combat its social problems. Like many urban centers, Hampton was caught in a vicious circle. The city’s industries were drying up and pulling the tax base down with them. Meanwhile, the demand for social services-from prisons to food stamps–was rising. “Spending more on prevention seemed the only way out of the cycle,” says city manager Bob O’Neill. So the city launched the Hampton Family Resource Project–which tripled its spending on preventative social services with the aim of achieving a deceptively simple goal: to “ensure that every child born in Hampton is born healthy and enters school ready to learn.”
The project’s primary target is at-risk mothers and children, but it also aims to reach families from all economic walks of life. “They’re taking a very holistic view,” says Ellen Galinsky, who studied the program for the Families and Work Institute. Libraries greatly increased their stock of parenting books and videos. A local hospital pays for a series of newsletters on chad development mailed to 4,000 homes. More than 1,400 residents have enrolled in free parenting classes, and some workplaces even offer them on site. That’s how Jeffrey Sand-ford, a senior vice president at Old Point National Bank, found time to go to a session on corporal punishment that persuaded him to stop spanking his child. “I realized [the kid is] so hurt and angry that the reason you spanked him gets lost.”
After only four years, an evaluation of the city’s program by psychologist Joseph Gala-no of the College of William and Mary reports good news. He says the most troubled families participating in the Hampton Family Resource Project have fewer premature births, more stable and stimulating home live s for children and fewer repeat teen pregnancies than the control group. Hampton is proving, he says, that “we no longer have to wait until kids are broken to fix them.”.
