Working with Policy - Whole Family Guide

Foundations are increasingly turning towards policy and systems change investments, recognizing that change at the local, state, and federal level in policy achieves change at scale for families. This section offers a range of resources to support foundations to build policy knowledge and identify strategies for whole family work.

Checklist for Policy Investments

An important way to assess how policy investments – and the technical assistance that support the success of those investments – are made is through a two-generation (2Gen), whole family lens.

Federal Systems Resources

Toolkits, guidance, and related resources from the federal government from the past ten years.

Whole Family Policy Options

This page offers a range of policy options that support a whole family approach, primarily through state policy changes.

Capacity Building Strategies

This page provides resources for capacity building strategies in policy.

A Word About Language

Whole family, multi-generational approaches meet the needs of and provide opportunities for children and the adults in their lives together. These approaches are highly contextual, and may be called “whole family,” “two-generation or two-gen,” and “multi-generational” approaches in some organizations, communities, and contexts. Particularly for Indigenous communities, an approach that supports multiple generations within a home or family is important. The goal of a whole family, multigenerational approach is to ensure economic, educational, and health stability and mobility for the whole family, using mechanisms and strategies that give both generations in the family a balloon, and not one a dead weight.

This guide uses “whole family” for consistency and ease of reading; and encompasses the meanings of these other terms.

This guide also uses “parents,” which includes caregivers, mothers, fathers, grandparents, and others who are in the lives of children. Families are defined by the families themselves in our view, rather than by an outside agency, and the guide reflects this as well.