Out of poverty family style: The Bornstein approach

¶ … Poverty

The Family Independence Initiative (FII) is a self-organized group that implements a type of program that "encourages self-control, desire for self-determination and mutual support." Group members encourage each other to focus on their strengths rather than their weaknesses or needs. As a result, an atmosphere of positivity is cultivated and group members lift themselves out of poverty. The program is different from conventional social programs in that there are no social workers involved in its implementation. FII does rely on liaisons to work with the families selected, so in that sense somebody does need to be hired to help implement the program. Beyond the basic structure, however, the families involved do most of the work themselves.

The clients of the program are typically families. They are usually welfare recipients, and in the early stages of the program the families were ones without much hope for a better life. The clients can be grouped into ethnic cohorts so that the families can more readily support one another, without linguistic barriers. This also helps to build a sense of local community, more than the current welfare and social work programs.

This community involvement makes the FII program unique. The program focuses on building the skills and strength of the families involved. These families will hold each other accountable for their success or failure as well. Each family sets its own objectives, something that also distinguishes the programs from more traditional social work. The program works from the perspective that help for somebody on social assistance can come from within and with the assistance of the surrounding community. Lim Miller, the program's founder, believed that by telling the people in the program that it was up to them to build their success, that those people would feel more empowered to pursue their dreams. Another underlying belief in this program is that people do have the power to pull themselves out of poverty if they are given the right opportunity. Working together, they have the contacts necessary to solve each other's problems and this removes many obstacles to success for the program participants.

This program is difficult for social workers to facilitate because they would only be involved during the initial stages. There is little room for tracking the program's effectiveness at regular intervals, because the program is not as structured as most social work programs. In addition, social workers may not be able to implement this program because of the use of cash incentives. Social workers often have fixed budgets and need to track the money they spend. That would be difficult in the FII program in part because cash outlays are unknown and in part because it is difficult to track what the cash is paid out for.