National Council on Family Relations

The National Council on Family Relations (NCFR) is a professional organization for family scholars. NCFR currently has more than 4,000 members across the world. Since its start in 1938, NCFR has been dedicated to integrating science and practice. Its members include professionals at universities, research organizations, and in clinical settings.

NCFR annually organizes a conference for its membership in November. The conference consists of an overarching theme. Recent themes included “Families Over the Life-Course: Bridging Theory and Practice” (2002) and “What Is the Future of Marriage?” (2003). About 1,200 to 1,300 individuals attend the conference each year. For the past 5 years, NCFR has also organized a Public Policy and Education Conference with the American Association for Family and Consumer Sciences, in Washington, D.C. This latter conference enables family professionals to discuss family policy issues with members of the U.S. administration and Congress.

NCFR consists of 10 different interest sections, namely, Education and Enrichment, Ethnic Minorities, Family and Health, Family Policy, Family Science, Family Therapy, Feminism and Family Studies, International Section, Religion and Family Life, and Research and Theory. Each of these sections organizes sessions during NCFR's annual conference. Many of the sections are also active outside the annual conference through, for example, Internet listservs and sponsoring edited volumes on specified topics. In addition to the interest sections, NCFR also has a Theory Construction Methodology Workshop. This workshop is dedicated to promoting theory and methodology development and takes place prior to each annual conference.

NCFR sponsors the publication of two academic journals: the Journal of Marriage and the Family and Family Relations. The Journal of Marriage and the Family focuses primarily on research and theory in family science. Family Relations publishes applied articles within family science. Both journals are published four times a year. In addition to the two academic journals, NCFR also publishes a newsletter for its membership.

More recently, NCFR has been active in sponsoring the initiative for the Certified Family Life Educator (CFLE) program. This program certifies individuals as having expertise in 10 different substance areas of family life: families in society, internal dynamics of families, human growth and development over the life span, human sexuality, interpersonal relationships, family resource management, parent education and guidance, family law and public policy, ethics, and family life education methodology. Currently, more than 50 U.S. and Canadian undergraduate and graduate programs are accredited to deliver the CFLE certification to their students. For more information, please visit the National Council on Family Relations' Web site at http://www.ncfr.org.