The National Council on Family Relations (NCFR) has conferred its organization's prestigious Ernest Osborne Award to long-time NCFR member, Terrance Olson, Ph.D., Professor in the School of Family Life at Brigham Young University (BYU). He has served as the Chair of his department, as an Associate Dean of the College of Family, Home and Social Sciences, as Associate Director of the World Family Policy Center, and as Associate Director of The Faculty Center, all at BYU.

The Osborne Award is given to recognize individuals who demonstrate enduring excellence in the teaching of family studies. It was established in memory of Ernest G. Osborne, President of NCFR, from 1948-1950, and an outstanding family life educator at Teachers College, Columbia University, New York.

Dr. Olson's work has focused on how the philosophies of science inform the practices of educators and therapists. His work on moral agency, drawing on theoretical work in the field, is applied to issues of adolescent sexuality, AIDS, marital interaction, parenting, adoption, the moral dimension of short story and film writing, and family life education. He also studies the intersection of social science and religion.

Dr. Olson was the principal investigator on a series of grants from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services from 1981-1987 working in sixteen school districts in five western states. The project trained teachers in a character and citizenship curriculum designed to address problems associated with adolescent pregnancy. From 2000-2003, he assisted with curriculum writing and training for a federal grant to the National Council for Adoption designed to promote infant adoption.

He has taken the NCFR content on family life education to other professional organizations such as the Office of Juvenile Justice & Delinquency Prevention; Society for Adlerian Psychology; National Council for Adoption; Association for Moral Education; the Character Education Partnership; The ANASAZI Adolescent Wilderness Treatment Program; The LDS and Catholic churches and Muslim (Qatar) groups; as well as to military chaplains, and teachers of public school districts across the U.S. He helped create a documentary on the common ground families share across cultures, including interviews with Brazilian, Indonesian, Palestinian, Israeli and U.S. families. He has been a Fellow of the Wheatley Institution since 2008, where he addresses ethical issues in family interaction and education in the public schools.

The National Council on Family Relations is the nation's premier professional association for the multidisciplinary understanding of families. NCFR has a membership of over 3500 family researchers, practitioners and educators.  For more information on the National Council on Family Relations or its scholarly publications, contact NCFR at 1-888-781-9331 or visit its website at www.ncfr.org .