Francine is a homemaker, a mother and a victim of domestic violence. Because her husband also supports the family, she can’t see any way to escape the attacks that devastate her life and damage her children.

One Francine is a tragedy, but there are thousands of Francines living in Erie and Niagara counties.

Francine is a fictional composite for a study done by the University at Buffalo’s Regional Institute. This week, the Western New York Women’s Fund will issue the findings of the study, called “Pathways to Progress”—a comprehensive assessment of the status of women and girls in this area.

The study focuses on key areas where changes can make a huge difference in women’s lives. These can be as large and expensive as establishing and funding new programs, or as subtle as altering cultural attitudes, says Brigid Doherty, executive director of the WNY Women’s Fund.

Why the focus on females?

“People have realized that in order to affect the next generation, you need to focus on women, because women are raising our children,” says Doherty. And affecting the next generation “is what we all want to do—that’s the American dream, to raise children who are smarter than us and more successful than us,” Doherty says.

“If a woman has health care, her family is going to have health care. If a woman is economically self-sufficient, her family is going to be economically self-sufficient. I’m not saying that men don’t play an integral role in child-rearing, but, unfortunately, the vast majority of families living in poverty are headed by single moms. So if you want to affect the next generation, you have to do it through women.”

The report starts with five fictional women, but Doherty hopes its findings affect hundreds of thousands. “It’s a call to action for organizations working with women and girls, a call to action for the media, to philanthropists, to the corporate world,” she says. “We believe, and I think the data show, that the best leverage point for economic growth is through women and girls.”

Rich conversations

Research for the comprehensive plan presented in “Pathways to Progress” was done by the UB Regional Institute, which is led by director Kathryn A. Foster.

In addition to gathering data that had already been collected — everything from census stats to dropout rates — the Regional Institute had dozens of what Foster calls “conversations” with groups of women and girls dealing with some of the issues that the report will highlight. “These are powerful conversations, very, very rich,” she says. “It’s amazing how people will open themselves up with a willingness to talk about some of the issues, which holds up a mirror to the region to tell us what is working and what isn’t working.”

Those interviews were followed by discussions with people who work with women and girls, and academics who study social problems, says Foster. “By the end of it, 300 women, girls and experts had been directly asked,” she says, providing “a reality check, sounding board and insights” into women’s life paths.

As they began to write, the researchers realized that the issues were intertwined in real women’s lives. “People don’t divide their lives,” says Foster. “You are not just your health, you are not just your economic security. Your economic security has everything to do with your education and health. We needed a holistic way of thinking about people, so we came up with the metaphor of the pathway.”

To explain the complex issues, the group will present fictional composites of women in Western New York at different points in their life journeys. They range in age from a middle- school girl named Maria to Mrs. Williams, an elderly woman who wants to stay independent, and each of them confronts challenges in health, education, economic security, safety and opportunities for leadership.

Each pathway is personified by a woman or girl who is sketchily described “to indicate that any of us at any time could be in these pathways,” says Foster. “Inevitably, we have all been on at least one of them, probably more. We certainly know women on these pathways, no matter where they live in the region, urban, suburban or rural, and whatever their ethnicity or racial category. Some of the pathways are age-defined — for example, we have a preadolescent girl and we have an elderly women — but for the most part these are pathways that will be familiar to people. You may not be poor yourself, but maybe somebody on your block is struggling with a job loss or the need for some kind of assistance or social support.”

Specific suggestions

Evaluating how women and girls are doing was just a start. The “Pathways” report also includes suggestions on how to improve the status of women and girls in these areas.

For example, for Gina, a single mother living in poverty, the answer has to include affordable high-quality child care, says Doherty. The report reveals that “child care in New York State is much more expensive than in other places,” says Doherty. But rather than just say “invest in this organization” or “invest in this part of this city,” the report, she says, “looks at models that are working across the country, which was important to me from a strategic standpoint.”

It isn’t lack of money that keeps middle-school girls from succeeding in math and science, it’s social messages. Success in math and science class “is not cool, it’s not fun, and they don’t understand what math and science have to do with their lives,” says Doherty.

The intervention of an enrichment program or a caring teacher or mentor can change these girls’ minds. This opens the door, Doherty says, to “introduce women to technology and jobs that have higher growth.”

Some of the issues cut across all economic lines. While poverty is a huge concern—“Two out of three families living in our community that are living in poverty have a woman as head of household,” says Doherty — some of the problems are encountered by women who do not have financial worries.

“Pathways” rolls out today with an event for community leaders and donors led by Foster and Doherty. A news conference Thursday will reveal the report to the community.

The plan is not to duplicate services, Doherty says, but to encourage organizations that are working on women’s issues by providing expertise and support. In a few months, the Women’s Fund will ask groups to submit proposals to fund programs that address those important leverage points. And in five or six years, Doherty says the UB Regional Institute will again measure “things like dropout rates, intimate partner abuse, educational attainment levels for women. We will re-measure those, and see where we are as a community.”

For more information about the “Pathways to Progress” report, visit wnywomensfund.org.