The Award for Distinguished Contributions to Family Systems Research Goes to?
- Joan Patterson!

It is a special pleasure for me to know that AFTA's Year 2000 Award for Distinguished Contributions to Family Systems Research goes to Joan Patterson, family systems researcher, licensed clinical psychologist, and my university colleague. She is presently Associate Professor and Chair of the Maternal and Child Health Program in the Division of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, University of Minnesota, and also an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Family Social Science in the College of Human Ecology.

One of my professional goals as a professor and researcher has been to fill the ranks of the university professorate with more women. But women in academia are regrettably still more prevalent as students than as professors. It is with pride and pleasure then that I introduce to you in this article a professor and researcher - Joan Patterson - who, with a stellar record of research and teaching, has moved handily into the ranks of tenured university professors. At the same time, she is mentoring others to do the same. The circle continues because of young researchers like Joan.

Dr. Patterson has worked tirelessly at the University of Minnesota for nearly two decades - writing research grants, implementing innovative research projects, and writing articles for juried journals. In the process, she has become an internationally recognized family systems researcher, often called upon to consult with other researchers nationally and internationally. She has published her own research in over sixty articles, four edited or co-edited books, and with colleagues, in numerous measurement manuals and technical reports. She has received almost seven million dollars in research grants, and almost two million dollars in training grants. Clearly, Joan Patterson is viewed by many research funders as worthy of their investment.

Let me tell you a bit more about her work, so that you will see why she is being honored specifically for her Family Systems Research. Consistently, her investigations focus on the relationship between the structure and functioning of the family system and the health of the children and youth within that family. Her particular emphasis is on families in which there are children with chronic illnesses and disabilities. I personally worked with Dr. Patterson and her colleague, A.P. Turnbull, at a special conference which they organized in Lawrence, Kansas. Their efforts resulted in a book entitled, Cognitive Coping Research and Developmental Disabilities ( Baltimore: Paul Brookes Publishers, 1993). The late Aaron Antonovksy was their main speaker in a sea of speakers, parents and professionals, that all of them addressed family strengths in cases involving children with disabilities. Dr. Antonovsky was one among many international researchers who respected Dr. Patterson's ground-breaking research on families with ill or disabled children. Her emphasis on family meanings fit with Antonovsky's solutogenic approach. Both preferred to study the health and strengths of the system rather than the disease or deficits. I, too, felt conceptually compatible with Dr.Patterson's research when she focused on meanings and the social construction - or re-construction - of a family, due to the child or youth's illness or disability. What this means to the parents, siblings, and grandparents is of paramount importance to the well-being of families and the ill or disabled child. This emphasis on resilience and strength in the face of challenge led to what Patterson and her colleagues called "cognitive coping." And as I have written elsewhere, when a family's situation won't change, the only possibility for change lies in the meaning family members attribute to the situation.

To be sure, Joan Patterson has studied families whose situations are not likely to change. Her earliest research focused on families of youth with cystic fibrosis. She is currently beginning a new study with this population to describe behavioral risk factors associated with increased morbidity and mortality, especially for girls compared to boys, which are first observed in adolescence, and continue over their life span. Dr. Patterson is also principal investigator of Project Resilience, a Department of Education funded five-year longitudinal study of families and their young children or adolescents with chronic health conditions. The study is designed to identify the conditions, as well as child, family, and community actors associated with competent functioning in both the youth and their families. Always paying attention to systemic interaction, she examines changes and recursive influences between the chronically ill child and family functioning over time.

A major research goal of Dr. Patterson's is the development and demonstration of the efficacy and effectiveness of family systems interventions which will promote successful psycho-social adaptation. She is interested in preventing disease regression and minimizing functional limitations in families of children and youth with chronic health conditions. She recently collaborated within a Health Maintenance Organization (HMO) in the Minneapolis and St. Paul area to pilot a multiple family group intervention for families who have children with asthma or diabetes. This innovative study was designed to improve medical outcomes for the children by strengthening family resources and the parents' ability to cope positively with their child's chronic illness.

In her role as Chair of the Maternal and Child Health Program, Dr. Patterson provides technical assistance and consultation to community agencies whose efforts focus on improving the health of vulnerable children, youth and families. In a current research project from this category, Dr. Patterson is working with an urban health department to examine the relationship between metropolitan residents' "psychological sense of community" and different indicators of family member health status. Again the focus includes meaning - in this case, regarding one's community. Currently, she is also involved in the evaluation of the impact of a community mental health promotion program regarding the systemic interactions of providers of education and human services and their service recipients. In everyday language, that means she is studying the interactions of professionals with the folks they serve.

At the University of Minnesota, Dr. Patterson teaches graduate courses on Families and Health, Children with Chronic Illness and Disabilities, Health of Infants and Children, and Resiliency Theory to Action for Maternal and Child Health Populations. She is also an advocate for public policies that contribute to child resilience and family strengths.

As I think about Dr.Patterson's accomplishments as a family systems researcher, I am amazed at the amount of interdisciplinary research that she has done, and subsequently, at the impact she has had on several fields. Based on her list of juried publications, it is clear that her research has been meaningful to scientists and practitioners from a variety of discipline. This is a unique accomplishment! To illustrate, if you want to read about Joan Patterson's research, you can check the following array of journals: Family Process; Journal of Marriage and the Family; Archives of General Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine; Families; Systems & Health; Family Relations; Marriage and Family Review; Journal of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics; Journal of Marital and Family Therapy; Journal of Pediatric Nursing; Pediatrics; Journal of Adolescence; Journal of Family and Economic Issues; Diabetes and the Adolescent. Truly, Joan Patterson's research has contributed to those in family therapy, family medicine, family nursing, family psychology, and others.

To make my task of telling you about Joan even sweeter, I can say that she is one of our own, an alum of the Department of Family Social Science at the University of Minnesota. She completed her doctorate in 1983, shortly after I arrived (so I can take no credit). My colleagues at the University of Minnesota and I are indeed proud of her and her contributions. I am deeply honored that she asked me to present this award to her in San Diego. What more can I say? Congratulations, Joan!

Pauline Boss is Professor of Family Social Science, University of Minnesota. Her latest book is Ambiguous Loss, Harvard University Press. The paperback will be available, Fall, 2000. German and Chinese translations, Spring, 2001, with others forthcoming. In addition to reach and teaching, she is a family therapist in private practice in St. Paul, MN.