University of Missouri Extension
Building Strong Families Program
Our mission is to strengthen the family unit.
The Building Strong Families: Challenges and Choices program helps families find their
strengths, build on those strengths, and learn skills to create stronger families, improve
relationships, and increase positive communication. The program covers 13 topics and
uses hands-on activities to involve participants. http://extension.missouri.edu/bsf
To date, 22,282 adults and 5,920 youth have participated in the program. Currently, 733
facilitators from Extension and various agencies (e.g., Community Action, Head Start,
schools, social services) in Missouri, Arkansas, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota,
Louisiana, Utah, Illinois, Minnesota, New Hampshire and Alabama have completed
certification training.
Building Strong Families participants reported the following after attending:
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93% learned at least 1 specific skill in each topic area
for example, I learned to take more time with each individual child.
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70% learned at least 2 specific skills in each topic area
for example, I learned about healthy portion sizes and how to recognize fraud.
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79% set goals related to strengthening their families or their own skills
for example, I will organize my bills, and I will spend more time with my family.
Participants gained a better understanding of what it means to be a family and ideas of
what they can do to have stronger relationships and better communication with family
members. Adult participants who made changes in their families reported these
changes:
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increased satisfaction with relationships
their families were better at helping out, communicating and getting along
together
they saw a greater value in their children and families and the relationships
they had with them
Local Impact
University of Missouri Extension worked collaboratively with X agency or partner to
strengthen families and provide life skills to help people improve relationships and
positive communication. In X county, X number of people participated in the Building
Strong Families program. Families report the following changes:
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list impacts here
You can use additional information from the Building Strong Families Public Value
statements to show how others in the community benefit from the program.
http://extension.missouri.edu/staff/publicvalue/pv_messages.html