Behind-the-Scenes—Creating NCFR’s Webinar Program

Jennifer Crosswhite, Ph.D., CFLE, Director of Research and Policy Education
/ NCFR Report, Spring 2023

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In this issue’s Family Focus section on “Behind-the-Scenes,” readers will learn how Family Science scholarship, programs, and pedagogy advance. This is such a great theme that I too thought I would take this approach in sharing “behind-the-scenes” information about creating content from NCFR’s education department.

The education department creates a lot of content. Perhaps you have seen its various products: webinars, CFLE conversations, Theory Thursday, Teaching Tuesdays (New in 2023), policy briefs, the CFLE credential, Report: Family Focus, CFLE Network, the conference, and resource collections. Through each of the products, various topics are covered: research, theory, pedagogy, practice, and policy.

The education department consists of myself, the director of research and policy education; Dawn Cassidy, director of Family Life Education; and Emily Vang, education and certification coordinator. Dawn and Emily work on all things related to the CFLE credential and Family Life Education (i.e., practice), including webinars as they related to practice, the CFLE Network, and CFLE Conversations.

I oversee the academic aspect of the annual conference and work closely with the annual conference program chair, conference program planning committee, conference improvement committee, our Conference Consultant Cindy Winter, and the rest of NCFR’s amazing staff who work behind the scenes tirelessly to ensure the entire conference comes together. All of the members of this team want the conference to be an amazing time!

I also oversee the production of NCFR policy briefs and Family Focus articles and work with the amazing editors, Elaine Anderson and Ted Futris, respectively. I work closely on the creation of resource collections, new resources around pedagogy, and other resources related to research and policy.

I am also very involved in NCFR’s webinars related to research methodology and statistics, policy, pedagogy, and our newest line of DEI webinars. There is a lot of work that goes into producing NCFR’s webinars, more than many might realize, so the rest of this article showcases how webinars become available for you!

The Webinar Team

The production of webinars is a team effort as the program has grown over the past decade! The first webinar, Ethical Thinking and Practice, released on September 6, 2012 was organized and facilitated by Dawn Cassidy. NCFR had one webinar that year. Dawn pushed ahead running the program by herself in 2013 with the release of four webinars. I started at NCFR in 2014, and together Dawn and I organized six webinars. Okay, I only added two additional webinars that year—I was learning!

Fast forward a decade—there were 18 webinars released in 2022 and 25 webinars planned for 2023! Each webinar takes hours of work to create. The program has grown so much that a team of people is now needed to ensure the success of the program. The team now includes three core people besides Dawn and I:

  • Claire Kimberly, the webinar coordinator, who does the bulk of the webinar work. I will come back to her shortly.
  • Emily Vang, who provides technical assistance during webinar rehearsals and live webinars, and
  • Trip Sullivan, who writes and disseminates webinar communications.

But, really, the webinar team includes many more NCFR staff including:

  • Ginnie O’Neill to assist with webinar marketing,
  • Susan Baker, who manages the financial aspects of webinars and classroom licenses,
  • Part-time staff who edit the webinars and classroom licenses, and
  • The rest of the staff who touch the webinars in other smaller and very meaningful ways.

Of course, the webinars can only come to fruition thanks to NCFR members. With immense gratitude, I am thankful for all the webinar presenters who have volunteered their time and expertise over the years. The NCFR webinar program simply cannot exist without the presenters!

Webinar Production

Over the years, the process of producing a webinar has become more refined. Much of the work is now conducted by Claire Kimberly, Ph.D., CFLE, our webinar coordinator, who identifies, vets, and recruits subject matter experts; coordinates schedules to ensure NCFR has monthly offerings of webinars; works with presenters and the NCFR team to write the webinar descriptions; holds rehearsals with the presenters; AND moderates live webinars.

Emily Vang sits in every webinar rehearsal and live broadcast to provide technical support as needed. These sessions can be up to two hours long resulting in four hours on Zoom to prep and host each webinar. Sometimes, we have two webinars a month (that’s 8 hours on Zoom) and time spent rehearsing for and facilitating live webinars only increases when we have a multi-part webinar series (e.g., the Quantitative Methods Webinar Series with Isaac Washburn and others). Emily also reviews every image included in a webinar PowerPoint. We have to be very careful of not breaking copyright laws!

Dawn and I oversee the webinar program by suggesting topics and presenters as well as reviewing webinar descriptions. We want to ensure that all webinars provide tangible skills that attendees can use immediately after participating in the webinars. We also want to ensure that the webinars are achieving NCFR’s global ends and providing new skills related to research methodology, statistics, how to engage in policy, skills for facilitating Family Life Education (FLE), running one’s own FLE business, and increasing one’s knowledge around diversity, equity, and inclusion. Dawn and I also meet with the webinar team monthly to discuss the program and resolve any issues that may have emerged. (Yes, issues emerge just like any program you run!)

After all virtual programs, including webinars, happen live, the recordings are edited and finalized so they can be watched on demand. Emily has spent the last couple of years prepping and editing the files for individual on-demand viewing. I am told that video rendering takes a long time! Besides individual on-demand viewing, people can choose to order a webinar (or conference recording) for use in their classroom. Emily then preps the files individually for each classroom order. Again, the rendering takes forever!

The Webinar Program is a Success!

We continue to grow the number of webinars offered annually, and the number of classroom and departmental use licenses also continues to increase. Because this work is so time-intensive, two part-time staff, Kristal Johnson and Kyle Armon, now assist with the process.

As you can see, the webinar program didn’t become a success overnight. Hard work and diligence was needed to ensure success as well as a number of other key factors:

  • Great presenters and topics,
  • Strong marketing and communication plans,
  • Detailed-oriented staff to run the program logistics,
  • Staff who are technology wizards,
  • Staff who are great with numbers and finances, and
  • A love for Family Science!

Thank you NCFR members for presenting webinars, providing topics to present, for viewing the webinars, and using the webinars in your class! Your continued NCFR membership makes it possible to continue producing these webinars and other NCFR programs.

If you have ideas for skills-based webinars, let us know! We listen to you for ideas. Keep ‘em coming! If you want to present a webinar, let us know! This is your organization. What do you want to learn?