The COVID-19 pandemic has forced professionals to shift their work activities away from offices and classrooms and into their homes. To help family researchers and practitioners navigate these challenges, the National Council on Family Relations (NCFR) has created three new online networking communities all focused on aspects of continuing work from remote locations.

Anyone who creates a free NCFR account may join and participate in the following three communities. This includes all NCFR members and Certified Family Life Educators.

1. Managing Your Research Online: Discuss data collection; working with the research participants; graduate student participation; basic, applied, pedagogical, and other types of research; and more around maintaining a research program online.

2. Teaching Online in an Academic Setting: Exchange ideas about quickly transitioning from a face-to-face classroom to completely online, offering online classroom activities, managing your online classroom, using digital technologies, or other online-teaching topics.

3. Online Family Life Education: Share suggestions for taking Family Life Education practice online: transitioning from face-to-face meetings to online meetings, conducting online activities, managing online groups, implementing digital technologies, facilitating group discussions, and more.

To join any community that interests you, visit the community link and click the "Join Group" button (you may be prompted to log in).

In these communities, participants can connect with colleagues to ask questions and share resources that relate to working remotely or enhancing work already performed online.

It is the hope of NCFR that these communities provide a great place for family researchers and practitioners to meet colleagues, make professional connections, share ideas, and get answers to pressing questions around managing work remotely. 

Continue reading for more details on how to get started using NCFR's online communities.
 

How to Post

There are two ways you can participate in this community:

1. Log in via web browser at groups.ncfr.org. This will allow you to search the library of documents and resources that community members post; and, of course, create and respond to discussions in the group. Your username is likely your preferred email address on file with NCFR, and is the same username and password you use to log in at my.ncfr.org.
2. Post directly from your email. Click "Post New Message" at the top of a group email notification to start a new conversation. You'll also see links in the email that let you respond to existing discussion threads.

Please note: All posts will be moderated.

Email Notifications

You can change the frequency of email notifications for this community at any time.

Select "My Subscriptions" in the footer of any group email, or log in at groups.ncfr.org and update your group notifications by going to "Profile" (arrow in the upper-right corner), then "My Account," then "Group Notifications."

You can unsubscribe from community email notifications anytime through the link in the email footer.

Terms and Conditions

The first time you logged in to NCFR's online communities platform, you were asked to agree to our terms and conditions. Please make sure you've read these carefully and follow them as you participate in the community.

Help/FAQs

The Help/FAQs tab at the top right of the communities homepage contains thorough answers to many questions you might have if you're new to NCFR's online communities.