>> FCRG Mission

The Families and Communities Research Group was formed in 1995 as an outgrowth of several research studies focused on urban children and families that were the collaborations of Patrick Tolan, Deborah Gorman-Smith, David Henry, and their colleagues and research assistants.

The Research Group provides an administrative umbrella and organization for these studies that are aimed at developing and articulating scientific knowledge about families living in poor urban communities. This program of research is focused on advancing our knowledge about development, risk, and prevention with children, youth, and families, and the settings of their development. Our intent is to articulate and refine a developmental-ecological model of psychosocial functioning through longitudinal studies that can help direct prevention and related policies (Gorman-Smith, Tolan, & Henry, 1999; Tolan, Guerra, & Kendall, 1995).

We are interested in understanding how parenting and family relationship characteristics are affected by the social contexts in which families live (e.g., exposure to violence, neighborhood conditions, the schools the children attend, the peer groups they affiliate with).

In particular, we are interested in describing variation within low socioeconomic status urban communities. We want to investigate the ways in which such community variation can affect families and alter their influence on children’s development. Finally, we investigate the implications these relations for prevention design and competence-promoting policies.

Much of our work focuses on prevention of delinquency and violence. In addition, we engage in evaluation collaborations and scientific reviews to aid practice of community and preventive interventions to reduce youth risk. Our goal is to provide reliable scientific information that can aid in directing policy.