Family life education and family life educators (FLE) focus on providing preventive strategies to promote healthy family functioning within a family systems perspective. In order to gain a greater level of recognition and acceptance from other helping professions, family life educators have worked during the last 35 years to establish standards and practices that align with and complement other professionals who help families. The National Council on Family Relations (NCFR) was instrumental in the professionalization of this occupation, and in 1984 initiated a task force of nationally recognized experts to draft the first curricular standards for a Certified Family Life Educator (CFLE). Once approved, this certification program was launched in 1985 and provided 10 content areas in which CFLEs must be proficient in order to ...