Social connection influences health, employment, education, and civic participation, yet research from the OECD shows that social disconnection and loneliness remain important challenges across countries.
For children, research on family relationships and development, indexed by the National Library of Medicine, highlights the lasting influence of caregiving environments.
Meanwhile, the National Institute of Justice identifies housing, employment, family support, and access to services as important factors in successful reentry after incarceration.
There is a common thread: people need relationships, support systems, and meaningful opportunities to build stable lives. We must look beyond individual programs and invest in the relationships that make lasting change possible.
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Community development is often measured through visible outcomes: new services, funded initiatives, employment opportunities, and buildings or institutions that serve residents.
These measures matter, but they do not tell the whole story: programs that provide temporary assistance offer no lasting stability; institutions exist without earning the trust of the community they serve; and economic investment brings resources into a neighborhood yet provides residents with no meaningful role in the community's future.
Investment, Maintenance, and Time
Relationships are the foundation of community infrastructure. Like physical infrastructure, they require investment, maintenance, and time.
My perspective is shaped by my experience of incarceration and returning to my community. Coming home was not just reentering society.
It was an opportunity to reconnect with my family, build sustainable relationships, and work toward positive outcomes. It helped me consider what makes meaningful reintegration possible and how organizations can help people build lives defined by contribution rather than circumstance.
Families are the first environments where we learn communication, accountability, empathy, and responsibility.
Supporting families means recognizing the practical and emotional pressures they face and creating conditions where caregivers remain engaged in their children's lives. This is especially important in the lives of those returning from incarceration.
Fathers, in particular, have an important role in providing guidance, stability, and emotional support, whether they live in the same household as their children or remain involved from elsewhere.
Mothers and fathers contribute in different ways, and healthy family relationships depend on communication, shared responsibility, and respect.
The objective should not be to prescribe one family structure for everyone, but to strengthen the relationships that help children feel supported and prepare them for adulthood.
Relationships also require consistent attention. I often think of a Japanese garden. Its beauty depends on patience, care, and regular maintenance. Consistent attention is key.
Families are no different. Conflict and hardship are inevitable, but strong relationships are built through the willingness to communicate, address challenges, and continue investing in one another.
Training and Preparing Children
Preparing children for the future also means helping them develop the confidence and practical skills to navigate a changing world.
For some, that path will involve college or university studies. For others, it may mean vocational training, entrepreneurship, or learning through work and community participation.
Involving children in age-appropriate responsibilities, community projects, and practical problem-solving is key. These experiences teach lessons that extend beyond formal education, including how to work with others, manage responsibilities, and understand the consequences of their decisions.
Going beyond the nuclear family is also essential. When grandparents, parents, children, and extended family members remain connected, knowledge and experience can be passed between generations, providing practical support during difficult periods and helping younger people understand their place within a wider family and community.
Yet, relationships need to connect to institutions capable of turning support into opportunity. Nonprofit organizations, employers, educators, local businesses, faith communities, and public institutions each have a role to play, but their efforts are most effective when they reinforce one another.
Individuals returning from incarceration need emotional support, family connection, stable housing, employment, access to services, and above all, psychological services to heal the trauma experienced before, during, and after incarceration.
Community Jobs and Leadership
Economic opportunity is equally important. This requires institutions and enterprises that create jobs, develop skills, generate resources, and remain active over time, as well as sustainable businesses and community organizations that help residents move from being recipients of support to participants in shaping local outcomes.
This means connecting social support with practical opportunities, including access to employment, skills development, and resources that enable people to become self-sufficient.
Recognizing local leadership is also key. The importance of the leadership of formerly incarcerated persons cannot be overstated. Much of the work that holds communities together happens outside public view.
Through parents supporting their children, mentors guiding young people, business owners creating opportunities, and neighbors helping one another through difficult periods, the real work is done.
These contributions never attract widespread recognition, but they build the trust, accountability, and shared responsibility that communities need to thrive.
Address Disconnection, Family Instability, and Lack of Employment
Philadelphia's challenges are not unique. Communities across the country are working to address disconnection, family instability, barriers to employment, and the difficulties people face when rebuilding their lives.
The specific solutions will vary, but the underlying principles remain: strengthening relationships, connecting people to opportunity, and building institutions that respond to the needs of the communities they serve.
The measure of community renewal should be more than the number of programs launched or the money invested. We must ask whether families are better supported, whether residents can access meaningful opportunities, whether institutions have earned local trust, and whether progress can continue beyond the involvement of any single leader.
Community leaders, policymakers, businesses, and nonprofit organizations must work together to strengthen family support systems, expand access to education and employment, and involve residents in shaping local solutions.
We must evaluate success by the lasting difference these efforts make in people's lives, not simply by the resources committed.
We must move beyond short-term interventions and invest in the relationships, resources, and shared responsibilities that allow communities to build a stronger future for generations to come.
J. Jondhi Harrell is executive director of Philadelphia’s TCRC Community Healing Center and draws on his experience of incarceration and reentry to advocate for stronger families, local leadership and practical routes to opportunity. All opinions are the author’s own.