Themes
The Family Resiliency Center is dedicated to advancing knowledge and practices that strengthen families’ abilities to meet life’s challenges and thrive. Our research, education and public engagement activities center around four themes. Please select a theme to learn more.
Child and Family Health and Wellbeing
The Family Resiliency Center aims to expand understanding of the ecological, economic, cultural and family level factors that promote health and wellbeing for children and families. Family, school, and primary care-based interventions using a strengths-based approach can reduce health disparities and morbidities associated with chronic health conditions and improve quality of life for children and families.
Current Research Projects
- Abriendo Caminos
- Backpack Program ™ Evaluation
- Balancing Household Needs
- Family Approach to Asthma Management (FAAM)
- Fostering Health and Nutrition
- Healthy Today, Healthy Tomorrow
- Improving Eating Behavior Through a Nutrition Education Program to Prevent Diabetes in Hispanic Communities
- Shared Family Meals: Catalogue and Connect
- Shared Family Meals: Family Mealtimes Messaging
- STRONG Kids Program
- Up Amigos
Initiatives
- C-U Fit Families
- Food for Thought Seminar Series
- Illinois Summit on Early Childhood and Healthy Beginnings
- Intentional Harmony: Managing Work and Life
- Parenting 24/7
- The Autism Program
- The Pampered Chef Programs Lecture Series
Child Care as a Resource for Families and Communities
The Family Resiliency Center aims to expand opportunities for families and child providers to work together in partnership to promote healthy development for young children. High-quality, stable child care can foster resiliency by supporting families during times of transition or crisis, protect against vulnerabilities of low-income households, and serve as an educational resource.
Current Research Projects
- Latino Needs Assessment
- Maternal Work Schedules and Children’s Socioemotional Development in Single Mother Families: The Mediating Effects of Home Environment and Child Care
- STRONG Kids Program
- Role of Child Care Teachers (STRONG Kids Subproject)
Initiatives
- Child Care Access Means Parents in School (CCAMPIS)
- C-U Fit Families
- Illinois Summit on Early Childhood and Healthy Beginnings
- Parenting 24/7
- The Pampered Chef Programs Lecture Series
Immigrant Families and Their Children
The Family Resiliency Center aims to better understand the factors that contribute to the successful adaptation of youth in immigrant families, particularly as migration occurs into small communities and rural areas. This will aid in developing effective programming for successful transitions and tailor policy to promote resiliency in immigrant families.
Current Research Projects
- Abriendo Caminos
- Improving Eating Behavior Through a Nutrition Education Program to Prevent Diabetes in Hispanic Communities
- Latino Needs Assessment
- Culture Brokering in Immigrants and Refugee Families from Eastern Europe
- Preventing Diabetes in Hispanic Communities
- Up Amigos
Positive Child and Youth Development
The Family Resiliency Center aims to help families foster positive development in children and youth which will help them meet current challenges and future demands of adulthood. We are identifying processes whereby young people develop initiative, teamwork, responsibility, motivation, emotional skills, self-esteem, emotion regulation, sense of identity, multicultural orientation and the ability to build connections to adult worlds.
Current Research Projects
- Balancing Household Needs
- Evaluating the Effectiveness of an Online Parenting System for high-Risk Parents
- Family Processes, Intergenerational learning, and Involved Fathering
- Healthy Today, Healthy Tomorrow
- Maternal Work Schedules and Children’s Socioemotional Development in Single Mother Families: The Mediating Effects of Home Environment and Child Care
- More Fun with Sisters and Brothers
- Preschoolers’ Emotional Resiliency: Family Processes, Temperament and Neurobiological Correlates
- Pathways Project
- Teen Connection Social Skills Project
- The Transition to Child Care: Maternal Perspectives and Psychological Resources
- Transitions into the Labor Force, Marriage and Biological Fatherhood
- Youthworks
Initiatives
- Illinois Summit on Early Childhood and Healthy Beginnings
- Parenting 24/7
- The Autism Program
- The Pampered Chef Programs Lecture Series