Understanding Families

Today's American families are more complex and diverse than ever before--and today's child and family professionals must be fully prepared to meet their needs. Interventionists, educators, health care professionals, therapists, and social workers will get the strong foundation they need with the NEW edition of this trusted textbook, a comprehensive guide to working effectively and respectfully with contemporary families.

Highly respected experts Marci Hanson and Eleanor Lynch have expanded and updated their bestselling text, weaving in cutting-edge research on social, demographic, and economic changes and connecting the research to best practices in family-centered care. With a strong emphasis on family resilience, this book gets preservice and in-service professionals ready to

work with a broad range of families with diverse structures, backgrounds, and circumstancescommunicate and collaborate effectively with every family they servesupport families of children with disabilitiesadvance strong parent-child attachment and interactionsmatch services and supports with each family's desired goals and outcomesaddress risk factors such as poverty, addiction, and violence promote the mental health of young children and their parents apply human development theories in their work with childrendefuse common sources of tension between families and professionals With this cornerstone textbook, the new generation of child and family professionals will have the research and practical guidance they need to improve the lives and outcomes of 21st-century families.

WHAT'S NEW

Timely new information on: Demographic changes in the past decadeCultural and linguistic diversity Economic issues caused by the recessionThe needs of infants and very young childrenInfant mental healthPlus helpful sample questions to guide service providers' interactions with families