Fathers And Mothers Infants eLders and Youth
We at FAMILY believe that the key to protecting other children like Yummy from similar chaos during the formative stages of their lives, whether in this nation or elsewhere, is to develop a nurturing environment for them and their families. This idea is not new. In 1930, President Herbert Hoover (1874-1964) said:
"If we could have but one generation of properly born, trained, educated, and healthy children, a thousand other problems of government would vanish."1
Since Herbert Hoover had been orphaned at an early age, he knew just how important a nurturing environment is for a growing child. By the time he became President, "The Great Engineer," as he was called, intuitively understood that the systems of society will interact harmoniously with one another only if they are tuned to the delicately developing systems of children. But Hoover was a victim of unfortunate timing. Because of the Great Depression, the nation did not mobilize to answer his call, and it has not mobilized since—until now. The movement has finally begun, but it didn't start in Washington. It began in the Codman Square neighborhood of Dorchester, Massachusetts. And although it will eventually reach across the nation and around the world, at its beginning this movement is very small, like an embryo. But it is packed with a greater healing potential than all the destructive power that terrorism or any man-made bomb can muster.
FAMILY is more than a program; it's an organizing system—a way for people, programs, and systems to work together in harmony. It brings about societal change through systems realignment. Our mission is to develop systems of mutual support that will enhance the quality of life for all children and families, starting at the local level, thereby helping to move our society toward health and wholeness. The vision and mission of FAMILY is clear. But we had to choose a real place to put this system into operation. We chose Codman Square.
Footnotes:
1 The Memoirs of Herbert Hoover: the Cabinet and the Presidency The McMillan Co. New York, 1952, p 259.
FAMILY History
FAMILY was conceived because of the death of two children. Eleven-year-old Robert "Yummy" Sandifer was executed in 1994 by fellow members of the Black Disciples gang several days after he had killed a 14-year-old girl in Chicago. When his story was publicized nationally, describing his troubled life, his multiple arrests, his drug-addicted mother, and his incarcerated father, it was clear that his life reflected the turmoil of his toxic environment. His overloaded internal systems simply mirrored the disorder of the systems that surrounded him. Neither his mother nor his father was equipped to be a responsible parent; they were unable to provide the nurturing relationships that he needed for healthy development. Yummy's central nervous system reflected the dysfunction of the family system in which he was developing. And unfortunately, the society that surrounded him and his family was also dysfunctional. None of its systems—the health care system, education system, human services system, justice system, market system or political system—were functioning in harmony with each other. They were working at cross-purposes, unable to surround him and his family with the supports that they needed. Society had tried to create an effective safely net, but Yummy and his family fell through. They needed more than a safety net to try and catch them after they had fallen: they needed a support network to prevent a fall from happening in the first place; they needed holistic support to get them on their feet and keep them there. Lacking the supportive relationships that he needed for healthy development, Yummy sought these relationships in a gang. Like a juvenile suicide bomber, he had become a domestic terrorist by the age of eleven.
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