FAMILIES AND SCHOOLS TOGETHER (FAST) BUILDS RELATIONSHIPS ACROSS RACES AND ACROSS GENERATIONS AND ACROSS SETTINGS

BEST PRACTICE IN SOCIAL WORK—YEAR 2000

SUBMITTED FOR CONSIDERATION AS A RACE RELATIONS BEST PRACTICE

Organization Name: FAST National Training and Evaluation Center (non-profit)

Graduate Program of Family Therapy

Edgewood College, 3200 Monroe St.

Madison, WI, 53711

Tel. 608-663-2382, FAX 608-663-2336

Contact Person: Lynn McDonald, MSW, PHD,

FAST Program Founder

Wisconsin Center for Education Research

University of Wisconsin-Madison

mrmcdona@facstaff.wisc.edu

608-263-9476 FAX 608-263-6448

Website: www.wcer.wisc.edu/FAST

SUMMARY: FAST builds relationships across the great divide of races in the United States. Racism is taught by your parents, your neighbors, the schools, the media, and the policies. The good news is that things that are taught, can be untaught. However, racism can only be untaught with involvement of the parents, the neighbors and the schools. FAST brings them all together repeatedly, for positive, interactive, personal and social encounters, and without ever mentioning race, attitudes and stereotypes change into respect and even friendships, which are across race, across generations, and across settings.

Families and Schools Together (FAST) Program

· FAST was identified in 1999 as one of six culturally competent programs in education in the US, by the American Institutes for Research, and has been featured in their website and in a publication.

· In November 1998, an article about FAST and its evaluation outcomes on youth and families was published in a book entitled: Substance Abuse Prevention in Multi-Cultural Communities, Haworth Press.

· In 1992, Arthur Morgan and Lynn McDonald co-developed a Rites of Passage FAST Middle School Program, which was only for African American young men as they turned 13, their families, and 100 Black Men. FAST is implemented in Texas by an all-Hispanic team for all Hispanic families. FAST has been implemented in seven languages.

· However, many of the FAST implementations of multi-family groups in the over 600 school based-programs in the 38 states, are multi-cultural. In the process of a multi-cultural, positive, interactive, multi-family experience over eight weeks, we will argue that fear reduces, stereotypes reduce, and long-term friendships are started which cross racial lines.

DESCRIPTION OF FAST

Families and Schools Together is a relationship building process which helps children and families cross over the racial divides of our country. This is done through outreach to primarily low-income, stressed and socially isolated families and invitations to attend one multi-family group session. Using positive activities in a safe environment, including food and music and fun, multiple families gather together weekly for eight weeks. During this time, families from diverse cultural and racial groups meet together in a non-threatening context, and find out that they have important things in common: they have children the same age, attending the same school, and they are struggling with similar challenges of parenting. As the parents discover these common human experiences and build friendships, their children watch them cross over the racial divides of hatred and distrust, and enter into inclusive community. The children follow their parents’ leads and also build friendship across racial lines. This is never mentioned directly. It simply happens through the positive, activity based, multi-family group process. 80% of those families who attend one session, graduate from the FAST groups.

PROJECT HISTORY

FAST was developed in 1988 at a small, non-profit, family counseling agency in Madison, WI. by Dr. Lynn McDonald, a former social work professor, former NASW-WI president, and a family therapist with a PhD in Psychology. In 1990, FAST became a part of the Wisconsin state budget in the Anti-Drug Bill for $1 million annually, beginning the statewide dissemination of the model program. By 1992, FAST was being replicated in 6 states. In 1996, FAST was a part of a California statewide initiative in a Juvenile Crime Prevention Initiative. In 1999, two new statewide initiatives, one in Missouri through Caring Communities and one in South Carolina through the state department of Mental Health, were funded. In 2000, FAST has been disseminated through two national non-profit membership organizations (the Alliance, and Communities In Schools) and four state governments, with awards from six federal agencies and several non-profit national organizations. FAST is currently being implemented in over 600 schools in 38 states, three Indian Nations, and five countries. Approximately ten Universities are currently being funded to research the impact of FAST on various populations.

POPULATION SERVED

The FAST program reaches out to whole families who are stressed and socially isolated, and primarily low income, to build relationships in the young child’s environment (ages 3-14) to reduce the bad outcomes of violence, delinquency, substance abuse and school failure. FAST has served 51% European families, 25% Hispanic families, 23% African American families, and 1% Asian American and Native American families. FAST has been unusually successful in engaging families depicted as “hard to reach” in which trust with social institutions has been minimal. Of those families that attend one multi-family group session, over 80% complete the eight week program. Of those who graduate, 72% attend at least one ongoing monthly session of FASTWORKS.

There is a clear list of requirements to becoming a Certified FAST site, that has to do with program integrity in the replication process. One of these is that the team must sign a values statement, which includes reference to racism. Another is that the trained FAST team must “look like the families it serves.” This simple rule is quite controversial in the US, however, is it not changeable. An all white team can only recruit all white families, if they are called FAST. There are many instances across the US of resistance to this rule, however it cannot be altered. This rule guarantees cultural representation, and it requires an explicit awareness of race in the process of putting together a team and of recruiting the families. The often un-mentioned issues of race become mentioned in FAST. The Certified FAST Trainers who come to a local site to train the team to implement the multi-family group program, are trained to discuss race issues, and also to look for subtle, often under the rug racist attitudes. There are several topics of the initial training which often give rise to covert racism, about which the Trainer is warned. For example, cooking the meal for the whole family group, often gives rise to this tension.

MAIN OBJECTIVES

1. Strengthen family ties with increased communication.

2. Enhance child’s success in school and at home.

3. Reduce child and family substance abuse involvement.

4. Increase social support networks, and reduce daily stresses.

FUNDING

Funding is primarily local; there are only four states which have FAST in their budgets; federal money has only been available for research and development. Several foundations have offered funds to promote the implementation and the dissemination of FAST. These include Kraft Foods, DeWitt Wallace Readers’ Digest Funds, and the Stewart Foundation. Probably about $30 million has been spent on FAST to support children and families since 1988,

ACCOMPLISHMENTS

Outcomes of FAST have been measured by continuous evaluation, using standardized mental health screening instruments for the children, and family environment evaluations, and levels of school and community involvement. In just eight weeks, teachers and parents report a 20-25% improvement. These gains are maintained over time. The children’s trajectory is altered and they are less likely to get into trouble over time.

Families report stronger bonds, better communication within their family. They also report making friends at FAST (86%), and becoming more involved in school and community (91%). These are improved relationships are considered protective factors for the children.

Another outcome which is not directly focused upon, is the improvement in race relations of both the families in the multi-family group program, as well as of the teachers and community based professionals towards people of cultures different from their own. The repeated exposure of eight weekly interactive sessions and the extremely positive nature of the evening activities, reduces people’s fear of the “other, “ challenges possible stereotypes in the face of the universal human family relationships, and builds positive relationships which come through sharing a common experience.

These positive changes towards tolerance and appreciation of diversity, and reduction in racism, do not come from a direct, linear focus, but rather from an indirect, side by side, experience. People eat together at FAST, and the food they eat is prepared by members of the group. They sing together at FAST, and learn one another’s family songs. They watch each other laugh and love their children, and can see commonalities of being a part of the human family. In the parent self-help group, the parents share their frustrations and their successes of parenting, and discover that they are not alone, and that they have advice to give one another. Gradually, the color differences start seeming unimportant, and more important are the supportive relationships that develop.

At FAST graduations, there might be 10-15 whole families who participate, and each brings guests. There is celebration for accomplishments, and tears of emotion, and the most frequent inter-racial hugging across families, of any setting in American today. As the children watch their European American mother hug their new friends’ Asian American mother, and the African American child watches his mother hug the Hispanic mother (we saw this once again last week in Madison, Wisconsin), they are learning an important lesson. They are watching their parents enact the human connection of hugging and thereby crossing over the divide of racism in America. Seeing their parents actively engage in positive relationships week after week with parents from different cultures, enriches the child and makes more likely that they will do this as well. Without ever mentioning “Love your neighbor,” the children see it happen, and this makes them more likely to carry on the tradition.

FUTURE GOALS

The growth of FAST has been remarkable. One of the main reasons is that families and children vote with their feet: the 80% retention rates in the programs surpass that of almost any other approach with low-income, stressed, isolated, families of diverse cultural backgrounds. FAST is being implemented in communities where people had given up—both professionals and the parents themselves, and with the active participation in FAST, hope comes back for both the parents and the professionals. The systemic approach, which celebrates the complexity of the child’s ecology and recognizes the importance of the parent in the child’s life and in the societal solution to reducing bad outcomes in children, just makes sense to the average person. And FAST is theoretically grounded in family stress theory, and is empirically validated with outcome evaluations.

Most bureaucracies in social work create different problem-specific approaches, and agencies and divisions: substance abuse prevention, domestic violence units, delinquency prevention, child abuse prevention, etc. These tear the families apart with separate services. FAST brings the family together again, and addresses the whole list of problems with a comprehensive positive, social networking, systemic approach. While this happens, racial harmony emerges as a by-product.

We believe that reducing racism can only happen within the context of ongoing personal relationships across racial lines, and that when children see their parents develop such relationships, this experience over time will teach the child openness to diversity and respectful relationships across racial lines. However, our society is so divided racially, that cross-racial friendships and neighbors are infrequent. We believe that racism is learned, and therefore, it can be unlearned. We believe that parents are the child’s best teachers, and that using a whole family, multi-family, group approach to reducing racism is an effective approach.

However, we do not believe that racism needs to be directly and didactically addressed with children. It is a much more powerful lesson to have the parents demonstrate in front of their children respect for people of different backgrounds and interactive, vibrant relationships with people of different cultural heritages. Children learn by watching and doing. In FAST they can watch their parents’ relationships develop across the racial divide, and they can participate with comfort themselves, in interracial friendships.

The future goals are to expand FAST across the US, to all kindergarten children, so that as they enter into the school system, they experience that their families are welcome, that the teachers will respect their parents, and that their parents get to know other parents at the school. This will set the tone for their education, in which the psycho-social is recognized as an important precursor to the academic learning in school. There are FAST programs now in 600 schools, but there are 100,000 schools in the US.

Racism in America is on the increase, yet not enough is being done to address it. In contrast, people are giving up on integration and on affirmative action as progressive policies. We need to act quickly, to block the increases in racism. FAST could help block racism by working in integrated schools before they are all totally segregated.

Anywhere stressed and socially isolated families live, children can benefit from FAST. A recent national survey of parents, indicated that all parents today share an urgent concern. This concern emerged across all social classes, all racial and geographical differences (War on Parents, 1998). Parents report that they are too busy and have no time for their children. In FAST, families have time to eat with their children, sing with their children, play with their children, and they also have time to hang out with other parents of children the same age at the same school. This need to informally network with other parents is a critical need, and yet it is invisible, and it quickly drops out when parents are too busy. Research shows that with social support networks, that parents parent better; they can monitor their children’s behaviors better, they can make themselves available without irritation and communicate better with their child. FAST provides opportunities for families to efficiently accomplish this. In the process, they also connect across familiar divisions of race, if the multi-family groups are diverse.