Faculty in the department of Human Development and Family Science, in partnership with the Health and Human Sciences (HHS) Extension, received a $118,900 grant from the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) to use the “Families Tackling Tough Times Together” (FT) program to help Indiana families navigate life post disaster.
The FT team will use the grant, along with additional funds from the Military Family Research Institute (MFRI), Lilly and Purdue Extension, to adapt existing program materials for extension educators to use in various post-disaster situations.
Purdue faculty, staff and students will work with extension educators to adapt the program’s materials, which emerged in 2020 as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“It was a huge collaboration between more than 70 people from across the university and extension,” said Kristine Marceau, principal investigator (PI) for the grant and associate professor of human development and family science. “We worked together to build this program using evidence-based materials. It was on the fly as people needed it in the middle of lockdown.”
“The idea was to help families during times when their lives are in upheaval and they're not really able to go to a weekly class,” said Shelley MacDermid Wadsworth, director of MFRI and distinguished professor of human development and family science. “We were trying to give people tools that, even in a chaotic environment, help them and their children do more than cope and maybe build some skills.”
“The activities are designed for people in crisis without the luxury of time,” Marceau said. “People should be able to glance at the page and understand the activity. If they want to explore the research behind the activity, we include a reference and link to it.”
The team has further reduced the barrier to entry through making the materials print-friendly so that people without an internet connection can view them.
For example, one activity involves a family filling a bucket. The activity “is meant to teach families about gratitude, complimenting each other and having positive interactions,” according to Marceau. The family can either use a printed-out bucket or an actual bucket, which could be filled with stickers, gems, rocks or whatever the family has on hand.
The FT program first gained a community on Facebook, but it has now expanded online and into the Lafayette area through a community partner. “In phase one, when we were using Facebook, we reached over 2,500 families in over 25 countries,” Wadsworth said. “Once we added it to the website, we reached over 4,000 families.”
The FT team hopes to expand the program to communities across Indiana and possibly throughout the county, using the Extension Disaster Education Network (EDEN).
“This program is about helping families feel they have at least a tiny bit of control over their circumstances,” Wadsworth said. “It’s good for parents and children, and it might be useful in ways we didn’t anticipate.”