Family Thriving: How Social Policy Can Promote Greater Connection

Today, many American families with young children are particularly vulnerable to struggling with day-to-day challenges of survival. The contributing forces are well-documented—child care is scarce; everything is more expensive, including food, shelter, and other necessities; and neighborhood and community risks are top of mind—all while the “safety net” often operates more like a test of one’s ability to overcome bureaucratic hurdles than a true fail-safe for those in greatest need. Incremental and reactive policy updates neglect the societal and experiential realities that intersect to create novel and widespread challenges for families today. This long-applied approach to policymaking often fails to address the root causes of families’ challenges and is misaligned with what research and practice identify as contributors to wellbeing. The result: government supports that are not designed to effectively meet the human needs they were created to address.

Governments should aim to help families and children thrive by developing policies that recognize and embrace the intersection of issues and needs that impact real lives. Typically, policymakers rely on measures like Gross Domestic Product (GDP) or broad unemployment statistics to take the national pulse, and these measures, while important, do not paint a complete picture of how people are faring. There’s global momentum to center quality of life as a primary measure of progress and a guiding principle in policymaking. In the aftermath of the pandemic, the United States created the Federal Plan for Equitable Long-Term Recovery and Resilience (Federal Plan for ELTRR), which uses the vital conditions framework as the organizing structure for a government-wide approach to removing systemic barriers to wellbeing, fostering community resilience, and providing a “vision of hope for a future with all people and places thriving.”

Thriving Families, an ongoing qualitative research effort run by the New Practice Lab at New America, aims to make family well-being central to social policy design and delivery. Over the past year, the Lab conducted an initial series of in-person co-design workshops with 34 low-income families with children younger than age six. During these workshops, participants started to define what thriving looks like for them and the resources necessary to achieve that state. Participants currently reside in Minnesota or Pennsylvania and come from a wide range of personal experiences, demographic backgrounds, and family compositions.

At time of publication, these families have continued to engage with the Lab through a remote digital diary study, offering deeper insights into the dynamic nuances, joys, and challenges of raising young children over an 18-month period. The New Practice Lab research team sent prompts to participants through a secure application to encourage them to reflect on and share their daily experiences. This visibility into real family life is necessary for designing policies that enable and encourage families to thrive. We want policymakers, program administrators, and community organizations to consider these lessons and put lived experience at the center of future policy design and delivery.

Here, we are sharing themes that have emerged from this deep research so far, including first hand accounts gathered from workshops or diary studies. Please note that any quotations or stories shared are attributed to aliases to protect the privacy of the families participating in this research. Quotes may have been translated to English or lightly edited for clarity only. To receive an email when new reports are published, sign up here.

The stories that families have shared illuminate the role of support in their lives as they navigate raising young children, and how having it—or not—affects their ability to thrive. Here, we look across these stories and explore ways that the next generation of social policies can embrace these realities to take meaningful steps toward supporting family thriving.

Support networks influence family thriving and play an important role in raising young children. Social ties, community connectedness, and feelings of belonging are associated with outcomes related to health, safety, resilience, and economic prosperity. Families described trusted relationships and support networks as integral factors to their ability to thrive.

For example, one mother described how a mom group she discovered and joined through Facebook creates this space for participants:

“We have volunteers come in. And we only spend about an hour and a half together. But we have volunteers come in that take care of our children. And it’s just time for the moms. Which it doesn’t always happen like that because we have babies that protest, but it’s nice to have a set time to go have mom talk.” —Julie, mother of five

Inversely, the absence of social connections is associated with negative consequences for individuals, families, and society. Among low-income families, social support networks are a particularly important resource during periods of instability and crisis. One grandfather detailed how his limited energy forced prioritizations that left him choosing between his own health and meeting the needs of his grandchildren:

“I had prostate cancer in 2018 and I still had [the] kids with me and so I took the kids with me. The baby was about no more than a year old when I found out I had prostate cancer. I took him with me. Successfully done it, got it over with. I haven’t been at a doctor since, but when the kids’ appointment[s] come up. Hands down [I go]. But when it comes to me, I want to go so bad, but then I’m so lazy. So lazy. I just don’t want to do nothing but relax. Eat four or five bites before the kids get home. But I’m just dead.”—Walter, grandfather raising two grandchildren

This grandfather calls himself “lazy,” but he is actually so busy and overwhelmed with caregiving responsibilities that he cannot attend to his own important needs. This could be ameliorated by a social network to share in more of the caregiving duties, but very few government programs and services that intend to tackle families’ needs consider the benefit of such networks.

Families reported the myriad impacts of having or lacking a strong support network. Below, we break down the sources and types of support they described and propose “next generation” policy considerations to strengthen social connection for economically vulnerable families.

In this brief, we observe three broad categories of support—informational, material, and emotional—all of which can vary in intensity and duration.

• Informational support includes any new knowledge or awareness shared with a parent, including guidance on how to access a new benefit or opportunity.
• Material support includes financial support; items like food, clothes, or school supplies; and watching children or training in new skills.
• Emotional support covers any intangible or conversational help, including therapeutic, friendship, and advice or guidance around parenting and navigating the daily tasks of life.

The Makeup of a Support Network

A support network encompasses a variety of people who play distinct roles. Several different relationship types emerged as important sources of support among our study participants, with the support they provide manifesting differently depending on the type of relationship and whether participants sought or provided help themselves.

Below is an overview of the sources of support and some of the limitations that participants highlighted. The help sought in these categories varied by availability and participants’ own personal preferences. Family size, immigration status, religion, upbringing, and many other factors can affect parents’ social connections, the ways they connect, and the impact of the connections.

Partner/Household

Participants received support from spouses or domestic partners during everyday situations. This can be the first option for families who tend toward self-reliance. However, some women noted the support available from male partners could be limited or inconsistent. Other research shows that partner expectations for participation in domestic life tend to vary between dual-earner and single-earner families, as well as between child care and housework tasks.

“My partner is great, but not the best at the day-to-day support the kids and myself need. I am typically running on empty and over-stimulated, trying to get everything done for myself and the kids alone. I have to rely on my six year old for help with his younger siblings sometimes when I really just want him to be a kid and not have to worry about those things.”—Julie, mother of five

Extended Family

Possibly the most common source of support and advice that families mentioned was their own extended family. When participants live close to or even with their extended families, especially older generations, they can rely on both emotional and occasionally material support.

“When I do need advice about parenting or government assistance or money management or anything, I normally go and talk to my mom. She’s older so she has a lot of knowledge about things like parenting… money management and other things. And most of the time, she gives me the best advice that I can get.”—Evelyn, mother of four

But, there are limitations to how much support one can receive from extended family, especially if they are also lacking resources and may also be in need of support. Participants described needing to turn to different sources and perspectives to answer some questions or access new information:

“I usually ask for help from my sisters. There are three of us, and the three of us support each other. We all have the same level of education. We don’t know much. Sometimes I look for information on Google, but I feel embarrassed to ask more people for help.”—Isabel, mother of three

Others don’t have the option of turning to their families. Some participants in immigrant families provide ongoing financial support to relatives living abroad, but the distance restricts them from receiving in-kind caregiving or other familial support. Those native to the United States who live far from their parents or other family members also note the missing support from extended family. Others may not turn to their relatives because of differing values, relationship challenges, or because they lack the means to be emotionally or mentally supportive.

“I do have my mom.... Her advice sometimes is ok. Lately it has been rocky though. She doesn’t always give the best advice and sometimes is negative about certain situations.” —Candace, mother of one

Friends, Neighbors, and Mom Groups

Whether in addition to family support or in place of it, participants shared ways they are supported by friends and neighbors. Oftentimes, peers can offer practical advice from their own lived experiences. A tendency toward reciprocity is common for this sort of support, with parents acting as peer navigators for other parents who face similar challenges.

“I have met some mothers who… we had similar kinds of things together. Like we both had kids who are autistic and the other mom’s child was younger than mine. So I basically told her what the autism spectrum is like, what you should expect, and how each child is different depending on how far on the spectrum they are…. We felt like we connected like in various ways, not just as mothers, but also for the kids, because my kids were able to make friends.”—Maria, mother of three

Formal Organizations

Finally, families describe finding community support through formal organizations like churches, local community-based organizations, and schools. These social resources offer not only professional staff who can provide assistance with navigating bureaucratic systems and benefit programs, but also individuals within the community who offer emotional support.

“We also consider the teachers and those here [at Head Start] like family. They have supported me a lot through [my children’s] education and development. We, as mothers, learn more from the programs, how to better support our children, how to take better care of them. And that is who I consider my family. All the people who support us, especially us as an immigrant family.”—Sofia, mother of three

Given the close personal relationships that can grow out of school, church, and other community affiliations, there are occasionally hybrid support sources that arise. For example, a family in need of support during a serious illness can request pastoral care through a faith organization or rely on friendships made through participation.

Given the importance of social and community support networks to families, these systems must be considered in the design of policies to support family well-being. Social support is not something that can be addressed in isolation; rather, it must be embedded in the design and implementation of policies, and across policies, to help families thrive.

What we’ve learned from families points at several opportunities to foster social connection in policy design and program delivery.

Consider a Combination of Formal and Personal Network Access

Families describe an interwoven network of personal and formal sources of support that they may rely on at any given time. In our observations thus far, no single support source was consistently correlated with a category of support.

For one participant who relies on her sister for mental and emotional support, meals with extended family provide stability, connection, and joy:

“We have family meetings…. We sit around the table. We eat dinner. You see how everybody’s day went, you know. What we could do to change it if we didn’t have a good day. Also to see what we can do to work together as a family to make sure that things get done properly and we express our feelings and emotions.… We always make each other feel important, but I do that because we didn’t do that when we were young.”—Nia, mother of one

However, other participants with insufficient personal support networks discussed the desire for a formal service to offer a combination of mental health support and parenting guidance.

Meanwhile, another mother describes receiving emotional support from a group of friends originally organized by her church:

“Right now, I participate in a group of ladies who discuss various topics with therapists on Mondays from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. while they take care of my children in the same place. Those two hours for me is my day where I rest and recharge my energy.”—Isabel, mother of three

These three mothers each seek a similar type of emotional support from three different sources—family, mom group/formal organization hybrid, and formal organizations—but the degree to which each could be aided by policy solutions varies. A policy goal of equipping parents with emotional support should consider their existing resources and designed in a way that reinforces those dynamics.

Understand Why Individual Families Seek Support from One Source over Another

Families are complex, and there are any number of considerations that may impact an individual’s decision to pursue support from one source over another. Understanding what drives those decisions helps identify more effective ways to empower families to make choices that align with their values and goals.

For example, parents realized varied relief with child care. For families primarily supported by personal networks, it is important to understand the strengths and challenges of those arrangements in the context of the whole family. Informal child care provided by a relative often comes with greater affordability, convenience, and higher levels of trust for parents. However, providing that care may impact the emotional, physical, or financial wellbeing of the grandparent or other relative caregiver.

There are mechanisms in place to provide these forms of support for caregivers in formal child care settings, but they are lacking for Family/Friend/Neighbor (FFN) caregivers. What we heard suggests that government efforts to support families should make it easier for them to receive child care from relatives and friends and reduce material and emotional hardship for those providing such care. Government efforts to make child care more affordable for families should account for the vital role of FFN caregivers when designing approaches to provider compensation and education.

Alternatively, for families who by necessity or preference rely on more formal networks of child care support, existing programs such as home visiting and Parents as Teachers are particularly helpful. Participants alluded to the consistency and reliability that may be associated with government-provided or other formal services. For example, when a teacher at a child care center or public school is out sick, staffing is typically adjusted and classes continue as scheduled. But, these more formal sources of support often require tradeoffs such as decreased personal autonomy and an increase in potential interference with their choices and values, all of which should be minimized.

Make Help More Visible and Accessible to Minimize the Consequences of Weak Support Networks

Having a weaker support network leaves low-income families more vulnerable to hardship. If a family is not well connected to their community, they are likely to miss important information shared by outreach campaigns or word-of-mouth, like which day care centers are best and which government programs could aid their family. This is amplified for immigrant families, who often experience additional challenges accessing government services.

One participant recounted the important role of a friend’s encouragement and advocacy in supporting her family’s access to emergency nutrition assistance programs (P-EBT) during the pandemic:

“I remember one of my friends, she announced that, ‘Oh, let’s go to the county. Let’s go and ask questions. You know, let’s call the school. Let’s call the-.’ You know, she followed me everywhere. We did. We went to the county. We went everywhere. We called the school until they told me the reason why. That gives me a sigh of relief. Like, okay, at least now I know why I did not get that money. So I have to plan: ‘this is what you didn’t do, this is what you should have.’ I have to do it and prepare for the next year, and guess what? This year they gave me that money. Oh my goodness. I was so happy.”—Hope, mother of four

This highlights the value of peers with experience navigating similar situations, but also demonstrates the limitations of personal social support networks. This friend helped when the mother specifically asked how to access a benefit she was aware of but wasn’t receiving.

However, in another diary study response, the same mother shared how she doesn’t have anyone she can consistently turn to with questions and worries that she is missing information about helpful supports:

“I don’t want to be falling behind in anything, especially something that would benefit me or benefit my children. I really don’t want to be falling behind.”—Hope, mother of four

In fact, while the P-EBT program launched in 2020, she only received the benefit in the final year despite likely being eligible from the start. While the relief of having a friend’s help in gaining access to this one benefit was significant, it did not alleviate her greater desire to “to be on track all the time” and to not “be falling behind.”

Peers and community members are well-positioned sources of knowledge and system navigators. These knowledge exchanges happened naturally when families came together during the workshops. Below is an excerpt of a conversation between Lena, who has been in the United States for over 10 years, and Juanita, who has been in the United States for less than a year:

Lena: Here [in the United States], there are a lot of banks that make loans so that you can get a house.

Juanita: What if you’re late on payments? Or something like that?

Lena: They give you a subsidy.

Juanita: They tell you that. They’ll give you credit, sure, it’s easy. But you get behind and they’ll take away your house!

Lena: Don’t let yourself believe that. Because you have to go to a workshop where they’ll explain it to you before signing. People who get stuck not understanding won’t get ahead here.

This type of knowledge exchange is useful, but depending on chance conversations to gain helpful insights about programs and support puts families without connections at an unfair disadvantage.

Policies and programs designed to aid families during times of need cannot work if they do not reach the very people they are intended to help. Digital government puts information at our fingertips, and for well-connected families that means listservs, social media groups, and multiple other sources of information that will explain, for example, how and when to enter a preschool lottery. But this is rarely sufficient, particularly among families with weaker or missing community connections and support networks. For many families, the knowledge void is often filled through informal support networks. People may not look for help that they don’t know exists, don’t understand well, or are inclined to distrust due to a longstanding history of systemic exclusion and even mistreatment. There is ample opportunity and need for more creative and thoughtful approaches to proactively make families aware of available help.

Adopt Creative Approaches to Reaching Underserved and Under-Resourced Groups

Promoting family well-being among those with less robust support networks might involve using data to target outreach efforts to hard-to-reach and under-enrolled families. This includes designing materials that will resonate with them in their preferred language, enlisting the help of community based organizations, and empowering peer navigators to lead with expertise. Practically, this requires policy that allows and encourages the use of program resources to fund these kinds of activities and sufficient resources to do so.

Broadening out, a no-wrong-door approach is a promising model for coordinating help specific to a family’s needs, particularly for those who are less connected to community and individual support. Human needs are interconnected. To the extent possible, services should address multiple household needs, cross generations, and facilitate consistency of support by building in flexibility for categorical eligibility across programs, encouraging presumptive eligibility that allows families to enroll quickly, and enabling continuous eligibility or grace periods to reduce enrollment disruptions.

Embrace That Effective Support Networks Require Trust

Regardless of who is in a support network, participants consistently shared that any support they receive needs to be free of judgment. Seeking advice is vulnerable. For the support to be effective, families need to feel like they won’t be criticized for their lack of knowledge or uncertainty. One way to achieve this is to make services more human-centered, especially for help that requires formal engagement with government or organizations.

“We used to have a home visitor who didn’t communicate well… it was hard to understand, but now [our current home visitor] is great. Like, I texted her at 5:30 this morning. And she texts me back. Yeah, you know, things like that [contribute to trusting a service].”—Ava, mother of three

There may also be areas of need where parents prefer to seek support from a formal organization over a more informal one. For example, one Christian, Arabic-speaking mother described the challenges of finding a children’s language program that was not affiliated with a Mosque or the Islam faith. A publicly offered language class would help this mother to pass along an important aspect of the family’s culture in a neutral, secular environment.

Likewise, formal organizations may be the only option for those in dangerous or precarious positions. One mother who has experienced domestic violence shared her struggles with learning about community events or mom groups because she does not use Facebook out of concern for her and her daughter’s safety. A main source of guidance and information is her child’s school, where she can trust her identity will not be shared more publicly.

Another pathway to trusted support is through peer counseling or peer navigators. Many of the participants described a desire to help other community members, friends, family, and even casual acquaintances. Generosity in lower income and economically vulnerable families is well documented and may be an adaptive response to challenging environments. Generosity also fosters resilient communities in times of disaster response and community interdependence in day-to-day survival:

“I have my friend, my close friend, at times she will have problems with child care and I just tell her to drop the child in my house. If I will be available I will help her out. The thing is that I have received such help before when I had my son like four years ago. Someone [was] always there for me to help me so it’s whatever you do to others always find a way of coming back to you.”—Grace, mother of three

However, feeling the need to reciprocate support can add burden to an overtaxed family, particularly within low-income communities. A distinct advantage of community support resources is that they are less likely to elicit the feelings of reciprocity that arise with family, friend, and neighbor support networks and strain those relationships over time.

To the extent possible, formal sources of support should be culturally competent, preserve family autonomy, and develop trust. Families should not have to trade standards for assistance and deserve reassurance that formal support will meet as many of their children’s and own needs as possible.

Provide Formal Support Structures and Payment to Better Enable or Sustain Organic Peer Support Activities

Services and support can be designed to leverage existing trusted connections and relationships within networks, while alleviating feelings of pressure around reciprocity. For example, facilitating and providing resources for community members to serve as peer navigators builds on their lived experiences as sources of support. This could include encouraging and allowing government funds to employ community members as family support staff, peer counselors, or navigators.

Such an approach incorporates many desirable qualities: capitalizing on established relationships, engaging community members to help each other, recognizing the value of lived experience, and creating meaningful work opportunities. The peer navigator approach is included in a current federal pilot program to connect families to support services after the birth of a child. Early results are promising and seem to indicate that peer navigators increase trust and decrease loneliness among participants and navigators alike.

Throughout the New Practice Lab’s work with families, research shows that social connection profoundly impacts families’ ability to thrive. Participants shared how social and community support networks provide key material, informational, and emotional support as they navigated the daily realities of raising young children. Their experiences clearly illustrate how the makeup of these support systems varies depending on a family's circumstances, among other factors, and highlight the inadequacies of a one-size-fits-all approach.

Government can support families better by recognizing that social connection has a huge impact on families’ ability to thrive and find or access services. Governments should consider how trust can be built and established and strive to make formal systems more visible for those with currently weak social connections. Enhancing social connection is typically not a stated purpose of most social benefit programs, but would need to be to promote well-being. Because metrics and measurement drive on-the-ground implementation, new measures would need to be developed to capture the potential success of these policy proposals. The Federal Plan for Equitable Long-Term Recovery and Resilience can purposefully refocus program metrics and federal reporting on a broader set of outcomes related to human well-being. The cross-government approach paves the way for shared indicators across programs that provide a more holistic view of individuals’ needs and the role of programs and services in their lives.

What we have heard from families points at several broader opportunities for fostering social connection and support in policy design and delivery as a necessary step toward helping families thrive.