SPSF History and Research

SPSF History & Research

A Brief History of the Development of SPSF

Weston McFarlane, Senior Technical Support Professional, was the first SPSF Contributor. He wrote about raising boys and why he is also called 'Dad' by three teenage boys who are not his biological children.

Many of the Strong People Strong Families (SPSF) resources are housed in the Family Centre.

SPSF places a premium on being engaging, positive and simply written. But SPSF did not start out with this focus.

The initial focus seven years ago was to address the most serious child abuse in all its facets and its effect on adult survivors, the workplace and whole communities, which was a particular concern of one of the directors. Later, the project would focus on other aspects of family life: for example, children, teenagers and adults who were not abused but who experienced ongoing anxieties, or children who were overindulged and may find, as adults, that they do not have the appropriate resilience to deal with life's major concerns should they occur. SPSF would also simultaneously focus on developing the brilliance of adults, teenagers and children - however that brilliance manifested itself - for example, in leadership, innovation, creativity, entrepreneurship, sports or academia. However, to help guarantee a sustainable future, SPSF considers that true brilliance also includes the ability to think critically and logically when circumstances require this kind of thinking (also see the definition of strong on this page).

Offering recommendations from the beginning of the project was Dr. Ludlow Burke MBBS (London), MRCP (Edinburgh) DCH (England) M.A.C.P. who had also completed a diploma course in Child Health in England. A vital advisor to SPSF, he is of blessed memory.

Dr. Ludlow Burke offered advice from the beginning of the project.

The Family Centre

Anganie Sookoo, Business Executive and our first female contributor, shared how she was raising her young son to love learning and to be physically and emotionally strong.

Definitions of 'Strong' and 'Family'

The term ‘strong', as used by SPSF, has a dual meaning. First, the term is used to suggest appropriate levels of resilience and the ability to take constructive action, the degree to which would be dependent on contexts and circumstances. To illustrate, bullied children or adults can be perceived as 'strong' if they learn to ask for help to solve or allay their difficulties. This proactive way of being leads into the second definition of the term, which encompasses the critical and proactive thinking that promotes the wellbeing of oneself and a community. By 2050, improved wellbeing may be guaranteed by the many improvements in the quality of life. On the other hand, based in part on possible errors in the use of the new technologies, a high probability also exists that families in all income brackets will only be able to thrive in communities in which large percentages of the adult population are capable of critical thinking.

Dr. Annmarie Edwards wrote about a technique she used to help make her children disciplined and resilient. Her daughter in the photo, now Dr. Tristi Edwards-Whyte, spreads awareness on conditions that disproportionately affect darker skinned individuals. Her research with two collaborators highlights a nail change that can be the initial presentation of melanoma in people of colour. In most cases, it is diagnosed at an advanced stage leading to poor prognosis. The research may be seen here.

The term ‘family’ has a legal definition that varies across national jurisdictions. Generally speaking, laws consider family to include genetic connections, relationships formed through marriage, and adoption. Some nations include unmarried spouses in the definition. However, since a legal definition does not fit into everyone’s concept of family, we leave adult individuals to determine the members of their ‘real’ family.

The Intention of the Project and its Principles

The intention is to strengthen self-leadership in order to enable high quality family leadership. SPSF hopes to prepare adults to undertake successful family leadership roles, and to enhance the leadership skills of adults who already have families. In this context, SPSF seeks to inspire more discussions and debates of effective family leadership in all sectors of the society based on the following nine principles:

Too many adults, teenagers and children are not reaching their potential.
Adults normally need considerable guidance on romantic relationships, health and leadership skills to become effective ‘leaders-of-self’ before becoming family leaders
Constructive attitudes and abilities of young family members can be developed significantly with family leaders’ knowledge of specific strategies.
A lifelong learning orientation is critically important for families and their communities as no school or university can provide a young person with all the needed information and skills they need to know to navigate their lives and careers successfully.

Adverse childhood experiences (ACES) affect children physically, emotionally and mentally, and generally have lifelong consequences.
Adverse adult experiences (AAEs) also affect the family and should be addressed.

Abuse in any of its five forms - physical, sexual, psychological, financial and neglect - as described by the Government of Canada is unnecessary, and other ways exist to resolve conflicts and other issues. 'Spoiling' a child to the point where the child lacks self discipline is also considered abuse by some professionals.
Persons over the age of 60 should have more learning opportunities to maintain their cognitive and physical health.
Wise family leadership helps to reduce social ills, which lowers the public health bill and allows a society to expend more of its energies in entrepreneurship. creativity and innovation.

Phases I and 2

The easy-to-read illustrated e-books and guidebooks in Phase 1 of SPSF highlight what is generally considered to be best practice on several major themes of interest and relevance to individuals, families, teachers, helping professionals, and others. Scholarly references are used. However, SPSF focuses on practical, doable strategies rather than providing an exposé on scholarly perspectives of family life. The intent is to propel fruitful discussions on family leadership.

Phase 2 is the offering of free and subsidized courses through the Centre for Critical Thinking.

Donnel Rolle, MSc., Nurse Manager, wrote about a sensitive topic, using her experience to discuss in simple and clear terms why some women may not bond with their children. She explains why these women need patience, understanding and help.

Chinwendu Agu, MSc., Nurse Lecturer, wrote about specific ways in which children are cared for by the community in Nigeria. Chinwendu is skilled in Midwifery, Clinical Research,

and Ophthalmic Nursing.

Chris Maher shares why her extended Irish family is so loving and supportive of each other.

Synopsis of Phase 1 of the Research

The following, a synopsis of the first phase of the research, does not include the subheadings normally associated with a research paper.

The Phase 1 research question was to ask what parenting themes were of relevance to parents, health professionals and helping professionals. To answer this question, it was considered that the input of a sample would be required to help determine the themes of relevance.

The sample, henceforth referred to as 'participants', were elicited from mainly semi-structured interviews over a period of over three and a half years from a random sample of 202 persons, comprising 117 women and 85 men. The majority of the participants comprised persons from the English-speaking Caribbean, North America and the United Kingdom. Other participants were citizens of Australia, Burkino Faso, China, Nigeria, and The Republic of Seychelles. The participants were helping professionals, health professionals, educators, religious leaders, scientists, artists, farmers, musicians, business people, military personnel, taxi drivers and housekeepers.

A qualitative research design was used. The original goal was to interview over 300 persons, but without funding, this goal proved unfeasible.

Unstructured interviews took place at settings where it was inappropriate to conduct semi-structured interviews. After determining major themes of interest to the interviewees, a review of the literature was conducted to determine what was generally considered to be best practices. Through the literature review, the investigations and experiences of a large number of educators, psychologists, sociologists, and medical personnel were imported into the content.

An outcome of the interviews was hundreds of cases on families, and various perspectives on families in several nations. The overwhelming response from the participants themselves indicated that society had not trained persons to become either successful partners or parents. The effect of this non-training encompassed, in the words of one participant, 'the increase of an internal emptiness leading to sociopathy and high levels of narcissism' leading to involvement in antisocial activities. A more general concern was that too many adults did not have the required role models to become effective family leaders. Yet another concern was that the 'overcorrecting' of strict parenting had created low levels of resilience, some of which was manifested in the high rates of anxiety and depression seen in the youth population.

The input from the participants suggested that effective family leadership does not only require logic and reasoning, but also creative reflection. SPSF concluded that since fiction has the potential to evoke both intellectual and emotional responses from readers and augment gifts of insight and creativity, fictionalized stories should be included in separate resources to supply nuances in interactions between individuals and groups in the family or workplace setting - as workplace cultures can considerably affect the quality of family life.

Another outcome of the interviews was that sufficient content was necessary to understand any subject, and certainly one as important as family leadership. However, the resources should not overly laden with text, with the understanding that the intention is to encourage readers to seek additional information. The resources should be image-filled, as images communicate their own messages.

Yet another outcome of the research was that to enhance the relevance of the material to readers, some of the participants should be invited to contribute material to the e-books and other resources. This group of participants are referred to as SPSF contributors. Almost all of the contributors have vast experiences with people from different social backgrounds, income levels, educational levels, ethnicities, cultures and subcultures, and all of the contributors have the ability to think critically and reflectively in the way that has been defined by SPSF in another resource.

SPSF is of the view that the input of the contributors helped to enable the books to receive highly positive reviews from readers thus far. However, the views of a larger number of readers would need to be enlisted for firm conclusions to be made.

Ethical considerations were paramount in the research. No children were interviewed for the project, for two reasons. First, child-respondents might not be aware of the implications of their statements in terms of revealing private family information. Second, conversations about how they were being raised might also provoke questions about their families that were outside the scope of the study. In terms of communication with adults who had been raised in dysfunctional homes, sensitivity and empathy were the steelposts.

Joseph 'Uncle Jolly' Stultz, taxi driver for over four decades, shares his observations of family behaviour when family members drive in his taxi, and makes suggestions to SPSF to help ensure healthy interactions between family members, as he does with his own family.

Edmarine Lowe-Ching, Management Consultant and Demographer, with her children, Stephen and Stephanie. Stephen is a pilot and Stephanie is a medical doctor who works in New York City.

Limitations

Any weaknesses in research design or analysis are not to be attributed to any individual other than the researcher, or to any institution other than the Farquharson Institute of Public Affairs.

Some of the limitations of the research were that the number of research participants was small in comparison with the size of the target population, and was not strictly representative of socioeconomic status, gender, age, ethnicity, and other demographic classifications. It could be argued that including several nationalities in the research - though these indiiduals added to the abundance of rich perspectives and presentation of creative solutions - also served to complicate the applicability of the research to any one nation. Hence, it is challenging to make a case for the generalization of research results to other populations.

The content does not comprehensively address any family life theme, which would require an in-depth analysis and expanded, and possibly voluminous, resources. SPSF recognizes that family leadership is situational, not formulaic, and more than one way exists to lead healthy, thriving families.

SPSF recognizes that family leadership is not the only factor that affects children. Genes, and how they are expressed in the culture and subculture affect children's behaviour. Furthermore, parenting itself is a complex exercise, and the project cannot cover all aspects of this complexity.

The research was not meant to be a definitive assessment of the needs of parents, or professionals involved in the care of children or other family members, and only served as a guide to the development of SPSF resources.

Therefore the Project does not claim to be a complete reference on family wellbeing, with the recognition that definitions and descriptions of the quality of family life are wide and dependent on context, culture, and objective and subjective measures, in addition to other considerations.

To help offset some of the limitations of the project, helping professionals are invited to adjust the content to make it appropriate to the cultures and circumstances of family leaders, and to simplify concepts or expand discussions.

Many of our contributions came from persons who chose to be anonymous, particularly when discussing sensitive topics.

Acknowledgements

SPSF is grateful to our over 200 Voluntary participants who guided us on the most useful and interesting content. Great practical wisdom exists in almost all communities, and this resource documents a portion of that wisdom for the benefit of the greater community. The books, ‘built by communities’, also imbue the team spirit that is the core value of SPSF.

We also owe an enduring debt of gratitude to our Patron, Trustees and Advisors.

"One of the most important things for the extraordinary development of a child is to have parents who are passionate about doing something - it could be playing football, playing chess, business, carpentry, swimming, art - virtually anything. I am not saying that there are not other factors to consider - but I see this all of the time - children whose parents are passionate about something have a kick start in life." Dr. Hillary Westmeier.

Recommended Reading (Note that these resources are not scholarly research articles, but 'reader-friendly' resources)

Children facing Pre-traumatic Stress

Violent Music Increases Aggression

Making Children Smarter: Ways Backed by Science

Older Brains Can be Smarter Brains