Building Strong Families: A Study of African American and Latino/Latina Parents in the United States

This report presents data from a survey of 685 African American and 639 Latino/Latina parents concerning the challenges of being a parent. The majority of these parents are working hard to raise strong, healthy, and successful children and adolescents. Most parents feel they are doing a good job. Findings demonstrate the commitment and effort that parents put into the parenting task. Despite messages in society that blame them for the ills of children, parents manage to maintain a sense of success as they continue to build their children’s Developmental Assets with little support from their community and society. The greatest challenges parents face are broader social issues (e.g., economic trends, pervasive negative values, community violence). Appendices include: (1) “Study Methodology and Sample,” and (2) “Search Institute’s Framework of Developmental Assets.”