Research and Community Initiatives
Overview
USF’s Family Study Center (FSC) has been an internationally recognized hub for cutting edge thinking and research on coparenting in family systems. From smaller scale community initiatives co-developed with and carried out in partnership with community leaders and local agency collaborators, to larger scale federally sponsored investigations, randomized trials, and implementation studies, the FSC continues to provide national and global leadership in helping to better understand coparenting and its impact on early child development. We explore solutions that honor modern families and family configurations, such as our innovative Focused Coparenting Consultation model that has been modified for unmarried, divorced, and multigenerational families, and for families reestablishing adaptive rhythms after a period of child welfare involvement. In everything we do, we work to assure that all family voices are heard, honored, and supported.
Current and Ongoing Research Programs
International Coparenting Collaborative
The FSC leads a collaborative of family-oriented infant mental health professionals from eight nations, partnering to identify means for framing initial infant mental health encounters and intakes with families to better assess, and raise family consciousness about, the importance of coparenting for infants and toddlers.
Within My Reach
A five-year demonstration project funded by the Administration for Children and Families* is testing the feasibility of delivering a Healthy Relationship intervention, Within My Reach, to parents during challenging times to strengthen relationships between family members and create safe and supportive households.
Figuring It Out for the Child (FIOC)
Over a decade in the making, the FSC’s “Focused Coparenting Consultation” model showed enduring benefits for coparenting, infant mental health, and other family outcomes for unmarried African American parents transitioning to new parenthood
Guidance for the Field: Special issue of the ZERO TO THREE Journal
The flagship ZERO TO THREE Journal devoted an entire special issue, edited by FSC Director James McHale and colleague Vicky Phares, to the topic: Supporting Fathers and Mothers as Coparents; The Next Frontier for Infant and Toddler Mental Health
Current and Ongoing Community Initiatives
Baby Talk
Since 2010, the Family Study Center has partnered with Concerned Organization for Quality Education for Black Students (COQEBS) on a grassroots community initiative for families with children birth to age 3, “Baby Talk”, and a 10-year sister program “Listening to Babies”.
Connected Coparenting
Initiatives funded by the Foundation for a Healthy St. Petersburg and by the Juvenile Welfare Board of Pinellas County provide training and consultation to area agencies serving families of children 0-3 to help front-line providers offer and effectively deliver trauma-informed, family-centered coparenting supports.
Cafes, Community and Coparenting
Collaborating with New Visions of the Well, Inc., an agency partner in south St. Petersburg, the FSC provides developmental screenings and ongoing “Parent Café” groups on major topics of interest to families raising young children in today’s complex world, in the ways families wish and the neighborhoods where they live.