NCFR Report, NCFR's quarterly member magazine, is filled with research-based information about key family topics.

Report is also an opportunity for submission of articles — research- or practice-based — to the Family Focus section, and can be a useful resource for faculty and family educators.

Editor: Ted G. Futris, Ph.D., CFLE

The views expressed in NCFR Report may not represent the views of the entire NCFR organization.

Call for Authors

Fall 2023 Issue: Families in the Post-Pandemic Era

Proposal Deadline: December 12, 2022; Final articles due February 15, 2023

Are we there yet? Importantly, where exactly is “there” and what does “there” look like? During the past three years, several issues of Family Focus have examined how the COVID-19 pandemic as well as other macro-level systemic challenges have impacted families. In line with the 2023 NCFR Annual Conference theme, “The way we are now,” the fall 2023 issue of Family Focus will focus on the syndemic—a pandemic that occurs simultaneously as preexisting social and health pandemics—and provide research on where families are in the present day and what unique and unexpected challenges they currently face or may experience ahead. Articles are sought that highlight advances that have been made, as well as gaps that may still exist, in research, practice, theory, and policies that affect the lives of families “post-pandemic.”

For example:

  • What have we learned from research on how families have coped with stress and the changing dynamics in families and between families and their community?
  • What theories and methodologies have evolved to advance the way we understand and study families?
  • How has the work of Family Science practitioners (e.g., Family Life Educators, family therapists) progressed to meet the changing needs of families?
  • In what ways have policies passed during the past few years impacted families, and how will they continue to influence families?

Authors are encouraged to critically assess how these advances and gaps vary in age, ability, gender expression, sexual orientation, ethnicity, race, national origin, or immigration status.

Prospective authors should submit their proposal online at www.ncfr.org/form/family-focus-author-proposal by December 5, 2022. All authors will be notified of proposal acceptance. Complete articles are due January 15, 2023. Contact the editor at [email protected] with questions.

 

Winter 2023 Issue: Parenting Education

Proposal Deadline: March 15, 2023; Final articles due May 15, 2023

Parenting education provides support to enhance the practices and behaviors of parents and caregivers that promote the health and positive development of children. Decades of research have informed and documented the efficacy of evidence-based parenting education. Still, how is parenting education meeting the emerging needs and challenges that parents and other primary caregivers (e.g., foster parents, grandparents, adoptive parents) are confronting today? The purpose of the winter 2023 issue of Family Focus is to share with readers what advances have been made, and what gaps exist, in research, practice, and policies related to parenting education.

For example:

  • What innovative delivery models for disseminating reliable sources of information to parents have been empirically tested and found to be effective?
  • In what ways has parenting education evolved, or need to evolve, to become consciously inclusive of diverse and/or marginalized children and parents or caregivers?
  • What strategies have been found to be most effective in recruiting, retaining, and engaging parents and caregivers in parenting education?
  • Are there policies that best support (or hinder) the accessibility, utilization, or quality of parenting education? 

Authors are encouraged to critically assess how parenting education needs and services vary in age, ability, gender expression, sexual orientation, ethnicity, race, national origin, or immigration status.

Prospective authors should submit their proposal online at www.ncfr.org/form/family-focus-author-proposal by March 15, 2023. All authors will be notified by March 22, 2023 of proposal acceptance. Complete articles are due May 15, 2023. Contact the editor at [email protected] with questions.

 

Author Guidelines

Please review our revised Author Guidelines

Family Focus Author Guidelines (PDF)

 

A Member Forum

NCFR Report is a quarterly magazine for members designed to encourage memberto-member dialogue, to inform colleagues about our research, and to discuss research
application for practitioners and policy professionals. Through Report, NCFR also builds our community by reporting on people, events, and organizational news.

Unlike the content of our scholarly journals, the articles in NCFR Report have not been
peer-reviewed. In the spirit of open debate and academic freedom, NCFR Report is a
member forum for exchanging ideas. The opinions or findings expressed are those
of the author(s), which may or may not represent the official position of NCFR as
an organization nor the prevailing scientific consensus on the topic.