Lesson 7 Assignment #2: Critical Thinking: Strengthen Social/Human Capacity
Most of you will go on to achieve great careers and be quite influential in your job, perhaps even bring great wealth to your family and support to the economic growth of the community, state, or nation in which you live. While this financial capacity and growth will bring great satisfaction to you, what about the issues related to building the social or human capacity of our communities – strengthening families? It takes economic and social capacity to build strong communities.
We know from the history of Head Start in America that when we carefully invest in disadvantaged children and youth we get remarkable results, social and economic. Furthermore, we know that many programs and opportunities that could be successful are diluted to the point that they are ineffective or disbanded completely because of insufficient funds or more often where they are placed on the list of priorities. Where are our economic and social priorities, and what are the economic and social impacts of substance abuse, school drop out rates, teenage pregnancy, divorce, single-parent families, violence, education, and child abuse to mention just a few?
Develop a thorough list of the social issues identified in Chapter 14 and discuss at least 3 of these social issues. Identify how you can use your knowledge gained about families to enhance, nurture, or strengthen the social/human capacity of your community and neighborhood, which will in turn support it economically? Use supporting information from the text as well as additional sources (Web Link articles may be useful). Again, be sure to include references and citations. Minimum 3 typed pages (not including references), double-spaced, standard font.
