Projects
Our work is driven by a commitment to empowering families and fostering resilience, and over the years, the Family Studies Lab has spearheaded groundbreaking research projects that deepen our understanding of family dynamics, relationships, and psychological well-being.
Current Project
The Notre Dame Happy Families/Familias Felices Project:
Who can join as a participant?
- Parent(s) or parent figure(s) & their child between the ages of 5-17 years old.
Biological parents, step-parents, adoptive parents, grandparents or other relatives, biological parent & significant other, co-parents, and single parents are all eligible if they are the primary caretaker(s) of the child.
Parents must have custody of children, but do not need to live together.
2. Must be English or Spanish literate.
What are the benefits?
- You will contribute to research that will help many families' relationships and mental health.
- You will get access to research-backed info about communication techniques and resolving disagreements.
- Your family will get up to $150 as compensation.
Who can join as a community site/partner?
What is the community site’s/partner's role in this project?
1. Sites will recruit staff, volunteers, etc. associated with the organization to be coaches. Individuals only need to volunteer themselves.
2. Both sites and individuals will work to recruit families to participate in the program.
3. Sites will maintain a team of coaches who administer the program to recruited families. Individuals will work with our Notre Dame team to administer the program to families as needed.
Fill Out A Community Partner Interest Form!
Past Projects
The Notre Dame SPARC Project:
The Notre Dame SPARC Project is a program designed to support effective communication and strengthen relationships in families that include a child with an intellectual or developmental disability (IDD). In particular, the SPARC project is geared toward supporting parents and typically developing adolescent siblings of individuals with IDD by promoting effective communication and conflict resolution between couples and also between parents and their typically developing children. The goal of the study is to evaluate strategies to support parents and typically developing siblings of individuals with IDD by improving communication and strengthening family relationships.
The Notre Dame Families and Babies Study (ND-FABS):
ND-FABS was a large-scale, preventive intervention project that was geared toward parents of infants, with a particular, but not exclusive, focus on learning more about the quality and impact of fathers' relationships with their children. The program includes four conditions designed to evaluate the best ways to support parents of infants by supporting their interparental and parent-child relationships and communication. ND-FABS was a collaboration with Dr. Julie Braungart-Rieker and the ND Socioemotional Development Lab.
The Communication and Family Relations Project:
The Communication and Family Relations (CFR) Project was a pilot study launched in 2014 to develop and evaluate the efficacy of a supportive program for families of individuals with intellectual or developmental disabilities. Informed by developmental and clinical research, the CFR program was adapted from material developed for an earlier intervention study for community families with an adolescent child (i.e. FCP), and promoted constructive interparental and parent-child conflict and conflict resolution.
Family Communication Project (FCP):
The Family Communication Project was a preventive intervention program aimed at reducing destructive family conflict and promoting family security. This project, funded by the W. T. Grant Foundation, built on decades of research on marital and family conflict and targeted community families with children aged 11-16 years, whose communication challenges and adjustment problems had not reached clinical levels. The goal of FCP was to intervene by helping families improve their communication with each other before problems developed. The FCP utilized interactive materials including movie clips, games, and role-playing to teach adolescents and their parents effective ways to communicate with each other. Data collection for FCP is complete, with 225 families having participated in the longitudinal study, but we continue to analyze data and gain insight about program development and efficacy.
Northern Ireland Project (NI):
The Northern Ireland project was a longitudinal study which looks at political violence in Belfast, NI. This project, funded by the National Institute of Mental Health, used an ecological, process-oriented model to examine the relationship between sectarian violence and ordinary crime, family functioning, and adolescent adjustment. A 6-wave longitudinal study including about 1000 families from socially deprived neighborhoods in Belfast was the main focus. Additional qualitative data collection was supported by a grant from the government of Northern Ireland with the aim of developing the applied implications of the findings.
Me and My Family Project (MMFP):
MMFP was a dual site, 6-wave longitudinal study funded by the National Institute of Mental Health. When the project began in 2000, our families had children in kindergarten; the majority of those children are now emerging adults. The primary goal of this project was to explicitly test a comprehensive model in which children’s emotional security serves as a mediator of the effect of marital relations in child adjustment. A variety of innovative procedures were employed to assess children’s adjustment, including a clinical diagnostic interview, family conflict interactions, and computer games to assess family relationships and cognitive functioning. Data collection is complete for MMFP, but there remain many opportunities for transcribing, coding and analyzing data in this extensive dataset.
Happy Couples and Happy Kids (HCHK):
Happy Couples and Happy Kids was an education program developed to help participants better understand family relationships. Decades of scientific research conducted by Dr. E. Mark Cummings and colleagues provided the basis for this cutting-edge educational program. Married or cohabiting couples from the Northern Indiana and Southwest Michigan areas with a child between the ages of 4-8 participated in the Happy Couples and Happy Kids Program. Analyses of the HCHK dataset continue, and findings from the project informed the development of subsequent preventive intervention programs out of the FSL.
Couples and Kids Project (C&K):
The Couples and Kids Project began in January 1999; it was a 3-year longitudinal study funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. In this study, we investigated the ways couples handle everyday problems and how their interactions affect their school-aged children (8-18 years). One of the primary outcomes of this study was showing that it is not whether parents fight, but how they fight (constructive vs. destructive) that has implications for children's development. The study utilized innovative methodologies, including parent home reports of conflict, lab observations, and analog procedures among others, with a diverse sample of families. Data collection for C&K was completed in Fall 2003, but we continue to work on some data coding projects, digitizing, and data analysis.