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University of Wyoming

Wyoming Education and Social Research Institute: Building Positive Change for Families, Older Adults, Youth, and Children (WyoE Family Institute)

A description and overview

 

            Today’s families are challenged in their role of caretaking whether that caretaking responds to the needs of infants, children, and youth or that caretaking reaches to family members who are older adults and related family members.  A family’s economic status may be a significant factor impacting the quality of and reliability of caretaking.  Other important factors that also influence a family’s caretaking functions include the 1) overall physical and mental well-being of the family members, 2) the extent of use of mood-altering substances such as alcohol or illegal drugs, 3)  the availability of social supports including extended family (whether that family is blood related may be necessary) and 4)  the quality of caretaking in the home by adults or others who share the responsibility of caretaking, e.g. siblings who are expected to care for their younger family members or grandparents who may provide regular caretaking for children.  Beyond these factors, the “daily” culture of the family—the rules, roles, communication patterns and styles, and the “auto-pilot” regular patterns of the family, have a significant bearing on the caretaking environment.  For some families, caretaking patterns provide reliable, supportive, responsive home environments; in others, caretaking may be chaotic, infrequent, haphazard, and in some cases, the caretaking may be non-existent or unsafe.  Some family members abuse their power in the family.  This abuse may take different forms of abuse including physical abuse, environmental deprivation and/or neglect, sexual abuse, verbal abuse, or emotional abuse.  Family life can become traumatic, forcing family members to adapt and maladapt.  The Wyoming Education and Research Institute, initiated in the fall of 2006 and approved by the University of Wyoming, is located in the College of Health Sciences, Division of Social Work to foster change for Wyoming’s families, youth and children.  The Institute will work collaboratively with the Wyoming Department of Family Services and its divisions and departments along with other public agencies and community not for profit organizations and agencies. 

        The WyoE Family Institute’s focus toward youth issues is directed to all youth, though children who are removed from their home-of-origin due to abuse, abandonment, and/or neglect will be one central area of research and education.  Being removed from one’s home is usually traumatic, sometimes scary.  The out-of-home placement process, broadly termed as a substitute care process, is both complex and cumbersome, particularly for the parents whose child(ren) is placed into substitute care arrangements.  Guided by federal and stage legislation, child protection practice including foster care and adoption are highly sophisticated service delivery systems designed to aid children who have abused and neglected and their substitute families—seeking to provide safety for all children and ultimately, establishing a permanent homes for all children.  Abused and abandoned children and youth face unique challenges and the Institute will develop research to better inform professional work in this area.

        WyoE Family Institute will explore issues of emerging aged adults, with particular attention to the up-coming Baby Boomer generation (those born from 1946-1964).  The issues of this generation will challenge both public providers, policy makers, and private, not-for-profit organizations. 

 

Mission of WyoE Family Institute

The WyoE Family Institute, housed in the Division of Social Work, in the College of Health Sciences, is an education, training, and research center, focused regionally, nationally, and internationally, on understanding the stresses and socio-environmental problems of families, youth and children, the aging populations, and translating that knowledge and understanding to social work and other human services professionals toward the goal of improving professional practice with at-risk families, youth, and children.  The WyoE Family Institute will work with international, national, state, regional and local organizations through research endeavors, education and training contracts and invitational meetings.  The WyoE Family Institute promotes the global emphasis of University of Wyoming.  The WyoE Family Institute provides outreach throughout the state through training programs, internship and service learning experiences, and research opportunities for students, alumni, faculty, and other professionals. 

 

Goals of WyoE Family Institute

  • Undertake targeted efforts to improve family life and the caretaking of family members

  • Carry out consultation, education, training, and research endeavors that foster the examination of the problems of families, youth, and children that interface with public social services, child protection, the juvenile justice system, or other mandated and community-based organizations.

  • Create innovative professional intervention approaches that foster improved family functioning including introducing innovative parenting approaches

  • Provide research and educational opportunities for faculty and students to better learn about the challenges facing families

  • Provide specialized educational and training curricula and monographs that address social work educational frameworks and those of related disciplines of families, youth and children and are available to social workers, public family and social services workers, and other human services professionals.