Welcome to Family Re-Union

Welcome to the Family Re-Union web site, a collection of reports, speeches, and resources from the annual Family Re-Union conferences. "Family Re-Union" is a policy initiative informed by a series of annual conferences that have been moderated by former Vice President and Mrs. Gore. The conferences bring together families and those who work with them to discuss and design better ways to strengthen family life in America. Vice President Gore believes that programs and policies should respond to the needs of families and communities and should build on their strengths. Each year for the past nine years, Family Re-Union has explored a different topic of critical importance to families. Past"Family Re-Union" conferences have been co-sponsored by the University of Minnesota's Children, Youth & Family Consortium and by Vanderbilt University's Child and Family Policy Center. Funded by charitable foundations and individual donors, they provide a lively exchange of ideas among national experts, grassroots program directors, academic researchers, and average citizens.  The conferences bring together about 1,100 people on site in Nashville, Tennessee and thousands more around the country in community conversations at down link sites. Family Re-Union includes plenary sessions, smaller working group sessions discussions and a film collage of media on the topic. The conference site is Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. Each conference has been the result of a year-long planning process that brings together experts and academics in the field along with program leaders and individual family members. They have engaged in a dialogue with each other, the sponsors and the Vice President, raising crucial programmatic and policy issues that become the core of the conference. The conference design builds on these discussions, leading to the new insights, public and private commitments and concrete results of each Family Re-Union Some of the outcomes of previous conferences can be seen on this website. Perhaps the most significant outcome of each conference has been the ongoing partnerships created between organizations and individuals in each field that have built momentum behind new ways of addressing long standing issues. Conference topics have included strengthening the role of fathers in children's lives, the impact of the media culture on children, the delicate balance between work & family, family involvement in education, family centered health care, ways in which community life supports families, and intergenerational programs. Family Re-Union is a dynamic and on-going policy development process that changes the way issues are perceived as each year's topic is explored. Countless programs, policies and new partnerships have been inspired or influenced by Family Re-Union In its tenth year, Family Re-Union will examine the issues addressed in past years, exploring progress made, new research, dramatic changes in family and community life and implications for future policy and programs. Key figures in each field will work with attendees to identify and plan for bold new approaches to these issues.