At the Heart of Family Learning: Thriving in the face of uncertainty
It may be that the most effective—and perhaps least expensive—way to mitigate disasters is to create stronger bonds between individuals in vulnerable populations.
– Daniel P. Aldrich
Building Resilience: Social Capital in Post-Disaster Recovery
It is no surprise that family learning programming should be successful at building relationships, both among participant families and between families and instructors. In NCFL’s 36 years of experience with family literacy and family learning, we’ve repeatedly seen how programming serves to help families achieve their workforce goals and support their children’s academic success while also giving them the chance to build relational bonds and social capital that extend far beyond the classroom.
We often see evidence of these relational bonds in action in ways both big and small. In one recent example, a participant in a Kentucky Play with Purpose™ playgroup was able to leverage the relationships she created within the program to help ease the transition after a move from another state. The playgroup helped her build friendships with local parenting adults, who then connected her with a job opportunity that she wouldn’t otherwise have known about. By the end of the nine-week program, the participant had not only learned new ways to integrate learning and play for her child; she’d also secured employment and built lasting relationships that would better connect her to her new community. The impact of experiences like these should not be underestimated; moments like these can be transformative for the trajectory of families.
In another example, family literacy staff at Thorn Hill Education Center in Frankfort, Kentucky sprung into action to support program families and local residents who were displaced during a flooding event earlier this spring. Thorn Hill Assistant Family Literacy Coordinator, Jeana Wallace, knows that when a family is in crisis, family literacy staff are often a key first line of support and connection. She quickly arranged to open the Thorn Hill gymnasium so that impacted children would have a safe and welcoming place to play while the community took the first steps towards recovery. At the same time, Thorn Hill staff worked to support parents through a donation drive that distributed toiletries, cleaning supplies, food, clothing, and bedding to the displaced families.
Dr. Kay Combs, Director of Family Literacy at Thorn Hill Education Center, notes the key role that relationships built through the program play in supporting families facing crisis or uncertainty. “In our community,” says Combs, “family literacy has become a safe and restorative space for families impacted by homelessness, incarceration, and addiction. We’ve seen firsthand how this approach can help to rebuild and strengthen families. A key part of that success is the empathy and compassion shown by Jeana, whose personal connection with families plays a powerful role in their journey toward stability and healing.”
These bonds can play an important protective role in times of crisis or uncertainty. Examples like the ones above underscore the importance of NCFL’s Family Learning Community® vision, which seeks to create aligned and coordinated family learning systems, built with and for families, in 60 communities across the country. We undertook this vision because we believe that deep systems work that is respectful of place and responsive to family voice is the most effective tool to positively impact the trajectory of families. Although this work is complex and multifaceted, our Family Learning Community vision is, at its heart, built on relationships.
In a recent article for Stanford Social Innovation Review, Dr. Seth Kaplan, a leading expert on fragile states, spotlights the power of relationships in place-based systems work. “Place-based models have a larger impact,” says Kaplan, “because they focus more directly on the social determinants in a given locale—including the nature of relationships within and between households, across neighborhoods, and with organizations inside and outside it.” While these bonds can prove life-saving in times of extreme distress, as noted by Aldrich in the quote at the top of this post, they are no less vital to the everyday functioning and health of communities.
As defined by Szreter and Woolcock (2004), bonding social capital describes shared bonds between family members, friends, church congregants, and other close individuals who view themselves as similar in some fundamental fashion. Bonding social capital is important at the individual level, and is often associated with improved education and health outcomes. At the macro level, bridging social capital (shared bonds between people who consider themselves to be dissimilar) and linking social capital (shared bonds between people and the individuals or institutions that have power over them) are pathways through which communities build the relational and social trust that make long-term systemic transformation possible.
Across our 10 current Family Learning Communities, a key component of NCFL’s effort is working alongside families and local partners to nurture, sustain, and expand bridging and linking social capital. Our ultimate goal is increasing the education and economic outcomes of families and communities. But we are learning that this work cannot succeed until community members have come to a shared understanding of their goals and a willingness to collaborate to achieve them.
Thorn Hill Education Center serves as the anchor partner for NCFL’s first established Family Learning Community in Frankfort, Kentucky. The organization also provides a model for the kind of deep community engagement that is necessary to affect academic and economic success for families. Effective FLCs don’t just meet parenting adults and children in the classroom. They meet families wherever they are—even in times of uncertainty—to help them clear the debris and find a new way forward.
NCFL’s Family Learning Network seeks to take this work one step further, helping to forge bonds between community-based organizations and communities to provide a means for local successes to spread and scale across the country. Through in-person and virtual meetings and a newly launched online forum, Family Learning Network members learn together, collaborate on shared challenges, and build new pathways of connection and partnership.
We hope you’ll join us this November at the 2025 Families Learning Conference where we’ll explore what it takes for families and communities to thrive in the midst of uncertainty alongside literacy practitioners, educators, researchers, funders, and nonprofit leaders from across the country. If your community is interested in exploring what it means to be a Family Learning Community, please reach out to us at info@familieslearning.org to learn more. And be sure to subscribe to our Family Learning Insider newsletter to stay up to date on the latest from Family Learning Communities across the country.
About the Author
As President and CEO of the National Center for Families Learning, Dr. Felicia C. Smith brings decades of valuable experience to advance NCFL’s mission of eradicating poverty through education solutions for families. She is a firm believer in the power of family literacy and family learning for multi-generational impact, transforming the lives of families and communities.
Smith has served in a variety of leadership roles in P-12, higher education, nonprofits, and philanthropy. Her unique vantage point of a learner’s educational trajectory, from preschool to adulthood, is a result of her experience leading across multiple education systems. Recognized as an Aspen-Pahara education fellow, she serves on several local and national boards. She also holds the position of Vice Chair for the Southern Regional Education Board and was appointed by Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear to chair the state’s Early Childhood Advisory Council. In 2021, Smith participated in The Equity Lab’s prestigious year-long Nexus Fellowship.
Smith holds an Ed.D. in education leadership and administration from the University of Kentucky, an M.A. in elementary education with an emphasis on K-12 literacy development, and a B.S. in elementary education from the University of Louisville.
Follow Dr. Felicia C. Smith on LinkedIn.