The Importance of Family

"The family, though the smallest and seemingly most fragile of institutions (is) proving itself to be humankind's bedrock as well as it's fault lineà.(whose) strength lies inthe cohesion and loyalty of the parent-child unit around which larger worlds of household and kin, community and nation à. necessarily revolve". - Steven Ozement.

For all the talk about the breakdown of the American family and society, women choosing the workforce over full-time parenting, the effect of ethnicity as a segmenting factor and the emotionally fuzzy logic of a conservative definition of American Family Values and their contribution to the ongoing concept of a moral, ethical America, all anyone is really looking for is a place, an idea, a concept where they can rest their heart. In this place, people would be with those they love and nurture and those who love and nurture them in return. It would be a place to come to after being out in the world, a place to rest and recharge with people who are (because of choice or birth) are family - a place they can call 'home'. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the importance of the family and the behavior of the family group on the welfare of the larger society as people are formed in that group to lead functional, or dysfunctional lives and the way it impacts social work. It will seek to answer the question of why social work values supporting a holistic view of individuals, family and communit