Strengthening Family Ties: Working with Black Female Single-Parent Families

Abstract

Despite the expanding literature on female single-parent families, very little of the research focuses specifically on strengths-oriented helping strategies for working with Black female single-parent families. This chapter provides guidelines for service providers working with Black female single-parent families that are culture-specific and strengths-oriented. The family life cycle and ecostructural principles will serve as an organizing franjework. The phenomenon of teenage parenthood has helped to create a distinguishing characteristic of the life cycle of female single Black parents, whose life cycles are generally more truncated. Many practitioners are inadvertently influenced by the pervasive comparison of Black single-parent families with two-parent families of other ethnic groups and with the label "dysfunctional" families. Self-aware practitioners who are sensitive to external factors adversely affecting the quality of life of Black single mothers and their children are better prepared to enter the clients' world as a helper.

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