Building Strong, Resilient Families

Resilience is the process and outcome of successfully responding to stressful experiences. Families under stress can improve resiliency through access to high-quality education and skill development that improve long-term outcomes. 

Research and Extension are committed to:

  1. Supporting stressed families through collaboration with trusted systems
  2. Providing parent education that builds resilience in families
  3. Developing financial literacy education that is accessible to low-income families
  4. Examining new family dynamics, trends, and conditions
  5. Being responsive to current issues facing families

Research Highlights

Originally launched in 2017, the Parentopia Project involves the design of a web-based application that complements parent learning and engagement through Minnesota’s ECFE program. As a closed platform, Parentopia.org can promote both class specific and site-wide discussion, private messaging, and general program information. In more recent years, the platform has expanded to additional school districts and enabled research with parents and staff to design technology as a hybrid for face-to-face interactions. Research has also identified the specific learning benefits to parents meeting in consistent groups and forming networks rich in social capital. 


A two-year research/design project funded by the MAES State Reserve Funds came to fruition in 2015 with 25 East-African middle school girls from the Cedar-Riverside community walking the runway and modeling active wear they co-designed UMN researchers.