The New FCS Family Resource Center will aim to serve CSULB students with dependents
Child Development and Family Studies Professor Dr. Nancy Dayne is passionate about supporting the needs of CSULB students with dependents (AKA student parents) -- after all, Dayne herself remembers being a student parent pursuing her doctorate in education, juggling her studies and work, while raising her family.
“A lot of our students with dependents are working full time, going to school, and they are raising their families at the same time; they are pretty amazing!,” Dayne says.
That is why Dayne, who also serves as the Co-Director of Student Success and Access for the College of Health and Human Services (CHHS), is working with CSULB campus leaders to launch a Family Resource Center (FRC) under the Department of Family & Consumer Sciences (FCS). The FCS FRC is set to open in the upcoming 25/26 academic year, thanks, in part, to start-up funds granted through the CSULB Office of the President given to the FRC through Dayne’s Beach 2030 Proposal.
The project falls under Beach 2030's expand access, cultivate community, and build resilience. As Program Director of the Family Resource Center, Dr. Nancy Dayne’s goal is to develop a space to serve CSULB’s student with dependents population – a place that is multifaceted in bringing another resource to student parents and also providing hands-on training for Child Development and Family Studies (CDFS) students who want to work with children and families as a career.
Dayne’s work is timely as the California State University (CSU) launched its Pregnant and Parenting Student Initiative earlier this year that is a systemwide approach to advance student parent needs and empower CSUs to share best practices and tailor solutions to their unique student populations.
“Our parenting student voices are really important, and I want to see what their needs are and build [the CSULB FRC] programming from there,” Dayne says.
For example, Dayne envisions a place where student parents can come and build community – perhaps over coffee – and talk about shared experiences. While their children play, their parents have a chance to talk to other CSULB student parents, or work on coursework for their classes.
Regardless, the new FRC will be designed to provide an extra resource and support for CSULB’s students with dependents population, and connect them to other campus resources such as Basic Needs, Pregnant and Parenting Students and the Women’s Gender and Equity Center (WGEC). Dayne, who has been working on campus with parenting students in various capacities since 2016, says she talks to a lot of student parents who are not familiar with the CSULB campus resources and services available to support them.
As mentioned, the new FRC will be used to train Child Development and Family studies students, hoping to become teachers or enter the field of family services.
“I think this is an opportunity for training our students to be better equipped with the skills needed to work with children and families,” Dayne says. “In our major in particular, we have a mix of students who want to be educators and students who want to specifically work with families [e.g. Marriage and Family Therapist, Parent Educators].”
Dayne is hoping that the Family Resource Center will bridge the best of both worlds -- where students from the multiple disciplines within Child Development & Family Studies can work with both children and families.
“I tell my students all the time, ‘If your plan is to be a teacher because you want to work with children, you must know that you will be working with their families as well. The Family Resource Center will give CDFS students the opportunity to build relationships and rapport with families, which I believe is essential in education. My hope is that they continue to build relationships with families in their future careers.”
For example, CDFS students could develop workshops/events for student parents, giving them resources and information on things like potty-training, self-help skills, activities for language/cognitive/social emotional development, and more.
“The plan is to give CDFS students the opportunity to be able to do internships at the Family Resource Center and spend time developing and implementing programming that aligns with what they learned in their coursework,” Dayne says.
In the future, Dayne is excited about the possibility of utilizing the expertise and knowledge found across the College of Health and Human Services to facilitate child and family support and learning at the FRC.
“Perhaps Speech-Language Pathology students or faculty, for example, might provide a workshop on language development and early intervention at the FRC. I think there are so many options for us in this college to do some of that interdisciplinary work.”
Adds Dayne, “I have been so fortunate to get support and collaborate with amazing administrators and colleagues across campus on this endeavor, such as Dr. Jeff Klaus (AVP of Student Affairs), Celia Mejia (WGEC), and Danielle Munoz (Basic Needs). The support of dean Dr. Grace Reynolds-Fisher and department chair, Dr. Virginia Gray and former chair, Dr. Wendy Reiboldt, have all been instrumental in the development of the FCS FRC. I am so grateful for the selection of my Beach 2030 proposal, which shows our parenting students DO matter!”
For more information about the new FCS Family Resource Center contact Dr. Nancy Dayne at Nancy.Dayne@csulb.edu
