Success Stories

I first met Dr. William E. Hall and Dr. Donald O. Clifton when I was 17 years old. A junior in high school, Bill Hall's son, John, had recommended me to be a participant in the Teenage Project of the Foundation, and it sounded interesting.

I remember my first impressions distinctly, even though that's more than 40 years ago: I was drawn to the philosophy of focusing on what's good about people rather than accentuating the negative. Having an attitude, as one was supposed to have back then, was a bitter pill. But I was a bit suspicious, also, because the Foundation clearly did not fit the tenor of the times, the rough-and-tumble Sixties. Nor, in many ways, does the philosophy today fit the tenor of our times now, the consistently-cynical Millenium.

The positive approach of Drs. Hall and Clifton won my heart, however. I especially remember Dr. Hall fondly for his wonderful ability to listen to a young student, i.e., me. I would wander by his office many mornings, on my way to working with the High School Equivalency program,which helped youth from migrant-labor families gain their GEDs. Dr. Hall would always graciously invite me in, and I would stand, green and embarrassed at his door (because I was too awed by his reputation to sit down), and he would ask about how my life was going. It was heavy stuff to get a chance to try out ideas with a much-loved and respected man. Bill Hall was my favorite teacher as an undergraduate at UNL, because he genuinely cared about students.

Dr. Clifton was a magnificent speaker, and I can still see him explaining what would come to be called positive psychology before our little group gathered in the west-side basement offices of Love Library, the Foundation's home back then.

Too soon, my newly-wed wife Nikki and I moved on from our Foundation work. Nikki had taught art classes for the migrant youths, and I was counselor for a high-school student hoping to rise from very humble beginnings. I didn't see Dr. Hall much after that; but his ideas stayed with me. Dr. Hall honed his thinking in the aftermath of World War II, where 50 million people died in a world-wide catastrophe. Dr. Hall's philosophy of positive people was founded on the belief that there must be a better way for human beings to live with each other in the world besides endless war, endless conflict. These ideas stayed with me to this day.

Dr. Clifton remained influential in my life for many years to come.

When I became a professor of family studies at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, the dominant question in the field at that time was, Why do families fail? Thanks to the Foundation philosophy, it was very easy to want to help the field of family studies change to a more balanced orientation, looking not only at family problems but at how families succeed. We began studying strong families and family strengths at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, rather than always focusing on family problems.

A ten-year series of national family strengths conferences in Lincoln grew from our research at UNL, and the conferences grew outward in many directions. In 2000 when the family strengths-based perspective was beginning to create an international effort, Dr. Clifton was a solid supporter, helping launch the International Building Family Strengths Conference series that continues today. Recent conferences in Australia, the People's Republic of China, and the Republic of Korea have united people from around the world to talk about how to help strengthen families. Upcoming conferences are being planned for Mexico, Russia, Korea, the United Arab Emirates, Africa, and Italy.

Not long before he died, I wrote Dr. Clifton to thank him for helping breathe life into the international building family strengths idea, an idea that has deep roots in the positive psychology developed many years before by Bill Hall and Don Clifton.

Do I believe in the power of a good idea? Do I think the positive philosophy engendered by the Foundation for half a century works?

Oh, yes!

Dr. John DeFrain is an Extension Professor of Family and Community Development at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. John has co-authored and co-edited 18 books on family issues. His most recent book, The Dark Thread: Surviving and Transcending a Traumatic Childhood, takes a strengths-based orientation to focus on individuals who went through terrible times as children but grew into relatively healthy and happy adults. The book will be published by Haworth in New York in 2006.