This briefing report does not promote a particular legislative agenda for the state of Wisconsin, but rather proposes a perspective that could be used to assess the impact of any policy or program on family well-being. The report is divided into four sections. Increasingly policy-makers, professionals, and family members recognize that one of the best ways to help individuals, children and adults alike, is to focus on those people who so strongly influence their lives, their families. The family is said to be the most powerful, the most humane, and, by far, the most economical system for building competence and character in children and adults.
Families carry out a variety of functions critically important to society.
They share resources, economically support their members, and care for the elderly, the sick, and the disabled in ways that no other institution can do or do as well. In recent surveys, the family emerges as the central element in the lives of most Americans. Increasingly, state and national commissions recognize the need to support families. For example, policies and programs usually focus on the specific needs of children, youth, the elderly, women, the disabled, and the poor, with little or no attention to the families in which these individuals live. Even though many sicknesses are contagious, programs provide health coverage for some children in the family but not all.