FOSTERING FAMILY RESILIENCY THROUGH COMMUNITY-BASED LEARNING EXPERIENCES

Helping families to be resilient in the face of family life stress and changing social pressures are paramount responsibilities of graduates of family science programs. We contend that these programs can better prepare students to meet these challenges by taking advantage of the community-based learning opportunities. This article brings together the growing literatures on family resiliency and community-based learning to potentiate growth in our students' abilities to promote family well-being, while simultaneously contributing to the communities in which they are embedded and helping their university to scaffold students' civic engagement. As the variety of stressors that impinge upon families continue to increase in scope and intensity, graduates of family studies programs will be called upon to assume a greater range of responsibilities than ever before. Helping families to be resilient in the face of family life stress and changing social pressures will be a paramount responsibility. Yet, the degree to which family studies programs are adequately preparing students to meet these challenges is not clear. Certainly, more needs to be done to teach students to provide evidence-based and theoretically- sound information to families in need. The purpose of this article is to bring together the growing literatures on family resiliency and community-based learning to delineate methods for training future family educators and practitioners to better meet the challenges facing children, couples, and families in contemporary society. At the same time that students and new professionals are being challenged to solve real problems, so are universities. Issues of accountability are frequently raised by stakeholders as