The UVU Stronger Families Project (UVU SFP) has improved the lives of families in Utah County through educational interventions. For more than a decade, the project has served over 1,070 families, and invested over 154,000 volunteer hours. Each year, the program provides a career-preparation, real-world experience to about 30 students who are becoming Certified Family Life Educators as they serve members of our community.
Currently, the program operates in a hybrid model, providing both online and in-person experiences, in Spanish as well as English, as space and staffing allows.
The program curriculum addresses strengths and resilience found in all diverse family types. In both family and individual classes, participants learn about and discuss strategies to implement the following topics:
The UVU Stronger Families Project has been developed as a hub and spoke model comprised of the collective engaged learning efforts of many different departments, programs, and internships across the university. The UVU SFP leverages student engaged learning experiences to help families achieve meaningful and successful lives in a mutually beneficial way.
The vision of the UVU Stronger Families Project is for UVU to reach out to the local community to improve the lives of families. We chose the family as the unit to have the greatest impact. Not only can we create change across the community, but also influence future generations at the same time.
You can sponsor participating families in multiple ways:
If student learning is a primary motivation for your support, the UVU Stronger Families Project offers students a wide variety of engaged learning opportunities. Students from different disciplines may complete their internship, service learning, and volunteer hours with the project. For example, students in our Family Science and other Behavioral Science majors have carried out an 8-week educational program for families impacting parenting habits, children’s social development, and family life skills training. Each night families engage with a family coach, divide into age appropriate classes, and end the night with a family class.
These transformational capstone experiences allow students to apply their skills they have learned in the classroom. You can provide a competitive market hourly rate for 30 interns (15 per semester) for $54,000.
UVU departments and programs who can participate in this project include:
