Dr. Alan Reifman's Family Policy Course

Today is our class visit to the State Capitol building, to meet with Representative Terese Berceau, whose district includes Madison (see the entry below for logistical details). Rep. Berceau's official website is available in the links section to the right.

Of added relevance to our class, Rep. Berceau serves on the Children and Family Law Committee, whose work is detailed here. If you click on the "Items Currently in Committee" heading on the Committee page, you'll see a list of pending matters. One of them pertains to "placement of pets in a divorce."

In setting up the visit, Rep. Berceau's staff asked if there were issues we wanted to discuss when we came in. Here is what I sent them:

Topics/objectives of visit: To make our visit fit most effectively with the content of the class, these are some issues that perhaps could be discussed:

(1) How can family scholars help legislators and their staff members make decisions that reflect the latest research findings on improving the quality of life for families and children -- both at the level of the Children and Family Law Committee and for the legislature as a whole?

(2) How can family scholars help ensure that legislators will examine the potential effect of various policies on families, even if a policy seemingly applies only to individuals? As an example, a law about workplace hours might appear to affect only individual workers, but there could be spillover effects on family life, such as disruption of the worker's existing child care arrangement.

(3) What are some key upcoming issues in child and family policy, in Rep. Berceau's opinion?

To get an idea of some issues considererd important by family-policy interest groups in the state, here are the webpages of Wisconsin Family Action (more to the political right) and the Wisconsin Council on Children & Families (more to the political left).