At a December, 2000 shared leadership symposium 101 parent and community leaders engaged in structured discourse and debate about key issues related to family support and family and community strengthening. This document presents a consensus statement about key issues related to strengthening families and communities. The document includes information on the process used in planning and carrying out the symposium. The consensus statement asserts that it is necessary to shift the paradigm of support from "families in need of help" to families as the nurtured center of democracy and an asset to be supported. The consensus statement supports the premises and principles of family support practice, identifies responsibilities for families and communities, identifies essential family functions, and asserts that children, youth, and older persons should work together to build and support a common agenda. Included is a demand that barriers to seamless, accessible, and easy-to-understand help for any family or child be eliminated. The statement further calls for legislation requiring that federal laws and policies be formally assessed in terms of their effects on families, and maintains that data gathered about communities must be available to those communities and must ultimately come from and belong to them. The statement advocates development of an integrated, seamless, and holistic approach to services that works with families as well as individuals. The statement concludes with a call for immediate policy action in the areas of community building and economic self-sufficiency, healthy families, work and family, family resource and support centers, families and education, and families and immigration. Four appendices highlight points of tension among conference participants, issues and ideas for family support centers and funders, and desired legislative outcome, and include a list of symposium participants. (KB)