Psychologist M. Jeanne Cotton has witnessed the deterioration of the family in every way-from divorce to violence, from drug abuse to poverty.
Now she is trying to do something to reverse the trend.
As chairwoman of the Year of the Family project in Lake County, Cotton is trying to heighten awareness of issues that divide families and galvanize a community. To her mind, communities do too little to protect their most precious commodity.
“At the end of the year we hope to have left the community with some skills to deal with the problems facing the family,” Cotton said. “We want to strengthen the fabric of the family. If we can do that, then we can strengthen the community.”
The effort, while well-intentioned, has received no official financial support; it relies on donations. Cotton said she has spent close to $7,000 of her own money in the cause.
The Year of the Family, which was sealed by a proclamation in January by the Lake County Board, was Cotton’s idea, one she felt compelled to act on after she spoke last year at a forum on family issues.
Since then, representatives from a dozen agencies and churches in the county have signed on to a steering committee, and some project events have taken place.
A kickoff rally, for instance, featured the motivational speaker Les Brown. A handful of parenting seminars have been held, and Waukegan radio station WKRS-AM is broadcasting a weekly half-hour show that deals with family issues. Cotton hopes to have summits with children and parents later in the year.
“We’re trying to bridge the gap between the parents and the kids,” said Jerry Adams, employment director at the Urban League of Lake County. “We’re showing support.”
Waukegan Township Supervisor Patricia Jones said she is using the project as a jumping-off point to deal with what seems to be the township’s root problems. Family troubles, she said, invariably lead to violence, unemployment and other social problems.
“I do believe that’s why we see a lot of the problems that we do,” she said. “Because once you have problems in the family, you’ll have all the other problems.”
Yet people involved in the project speak in terms of incremental gains-or no gains at all. Their goals seem modest-just to publicize agencies that work with families and, perhaps, help direct people in need to them.
There is a sense, too, that the project lacks some organization and support.
“You could have spent a lot of time planning before kicking this off,” said Teresa Bartels, owner and vice president of Manpower Temporary Service franchises in Lake and McHenry Counties and an honorary chairwoman on the project. “It’s been hard to raise money. But it always is.”
Said Cotton: “We hoped to get better cooperation, but you know how it is.”
The Lake County Department of Health has a Family Life Education program that is designed to encourage closer relationships between parents and children over such sensitive issues as sex and lifestyles.
Program officials are waiting to hear how they can participate in the Year of the Family, said spokesman Mike Crandall.
“We’re just here waiting,” he said, “to find out how we can be of service.”
Family problems cut deep in Lake County. According to the project, a half-dozen children were killed by their parents last year, and gang activity this year is up significantly over 1994. In some of the poorest parts of the county, problems in the schools also are troubling.
According to the project, nearly 8 percent of students in Waukegan, Zion and North Chicago drop out between 8th grade and high school, while the junior high truancy rate is 24 percent. About 30 percent of junior high students in these communities are failing their courses.
Cotton is not deterred by the bleak statistics or by the troubled lives they represent. One of her goals is to reach beyond those three troubled cities to the rest of the county, where family problems often are hidden by the facade of comfortable suburban life.
Beyond that, she hopes to carry the project beyond the year’s end, using it as a starting point for more discussion about family problems and, finally, some action.
“You have to start somewhere with these problems. We might as well start here in Lake County,” said Cotton.
“Then we have to just keep on going with the project.”
