Family Programs

Build strong, connected families where young people learn to thrive.

The Power of Strong Families

Our research shows that the strength of relationships within families has a tremendous impact on how young people develop. Yet families often become disconnected as youth enter the critical transition years of middle school. Search Institute offers several research-based resources to build the capacity of family-serving organizations to help form developmental relationships between parenting adults and their children.

Read about how a neighborhood program in San Pedro, CA worked with families to help young people transition into their teen years.

Workshops & Training

Keep Connected Institute for Strengthening Family Relationships

Keep Connected is a research-based program that gives parents and their adolescent youth an opportunity to learn about keys to positive family relationships at a time as they move into middle and high school. This two-day training institute comes with curriculum to prepare an organization’s staff to launch the Keep Connected program in their school or community. This additionally features an online toolkit with marketing, recruitment and training resources to support programs through a successful launch of Keep Connected.

Engaging Families: A Relationships-Based Approach

This three-hour workshop introducing family organizations to a research-based approach that builds on family strengths to form developmental relationships.

Strengthening Family Relationships: A Workshop for Parenting Adults.

Parenting adults identify and celebrate their family’s strengths and intentional strategies for growing other strengths in this two-hour workshop.

Free Family Engagement Resource

Download a free mini course for engaging parents: Relationships that Matter: 5 Keys to Helping Your Child Succeed (Available in English and Spanish). With this single session, 80-minute workshop, you can help parents understand and focus on five areas of parent-child relationships that are key to youth’s success in school and other areas of life.