Blogs

This timely Wellness Wednesday was provided by staff at the National Safety Council . Please read and share widely.  Children in hot cars are dying at an alarming rate. Tragically, more children died in hot cars in the United States in 2018 than any other year on record. Since 1998 , more than 800 children have died in hot cars. These deaths have occurred during all months of the year, and in all but three states in the U.S. Twenty-four percent have occurred in employer parking lots while the parent or caregiver was at work. Parents, caregivers, and Family and Consumer Sciences (FCS) teachers can act immediately to end these preventable deaths. ...

FCS fit Wellness Wednesday:  'Cause Givin' is Good for You May is National Foster Care Month , a time to acknowledge foster parents, family members, volunteers, mentors, policymakers, child welfare professionals, and other members of the community who help children and youth in foster care find permanent homes and connections.  This is an opportune time to announce the 2019 Student Unit (SU) Service Project , which will take place onsite in St. Louis next month during the 110th Annual Conference & Expo .  The annual Service Project's mission is to help a nonprofit that is based in the conference host city make an even greater impact. This year, ...

AAFCS Recognizes 2019 National Teacher of the Year for Program Teaching Youth Communication and Appropriate Use of Technology Family & Consumer Sciences Prepares Students for College, Careers and Life Alexandria, Va. – Today the American Association of Family & Consumer Sciences (AAFCS) officially announced Heather Marand Jones, M.Ed., CFCS , Family & Consumer Sciences Teacher and Career & Technical Education Department Chair at Carl Sandburg Middle School in Alexandria, Virginia, as the AAFCS 2019 National Teacher of the Year . Sponsored by Goodheart-Willcox Publisher , the Teacher of the Year award recognizes exemplary ...

As we continue our FCSfit Year Three focus on emotional health and relationship well-being , we hear from Lisa Brooks,  PhD, RD, (pictured below)  on a relationship that may often be overlooked -- the one between what we eat and how we feel. It may even make you rethink dinner tonight! Brooks is a director-at-large for the AAFCS Board of Directors, a member of the Illinois Affiliate, and an Associate Professor at Eastern Illinois University in the  nationally accredited School of Family & Consumer Sciences. You can connect with Lisa in person at the upcoming 110th #AAFCSac , where she'll be presenting, "The Blue Zones: Powerful Lessons for ...

On Thursday, March 28th, 2019, AAFCS learned that Rachael Ray had commented on a Good Morning America segment that home economics wasn't taught in schools any longer. We immediately responded via Twitter and Facebook, and followed up with the letter linked here (image below) to the producers at the Rachael Ray Show. We look forward to continuing the conversation with Ms. Ray!

The International Home Economics Services (IHES) invites home economics professionals from developing countries to apply for financial assistance with expenses to attend the International Federation for Home Economics (IFHE) World Congress in Atlanta, Georgia, USA, August 2-8, 2020.   The Congress theme is “Home Economics: Soaring Toward Sustainable Development.” Applications are welcome from any IFHE member (There is still time to join IFHE by going on line to ifhe.org ). A priority for the IHES scholarship is to promote engagement by emerging professionals, thus International graduate students who are studying in a home economics-related program in ...

In the last Wellness Wednesday, we learned about key motivators for putting mindfulness into practice . This month, we take mindfulness to work, thanks to this submission from  Katherine E. Soule, Ph.D ., Director of University of California Cooperative Extension and Youth, Families, & Communities Advisor in San Luis Obispo & Santa Barbara Counties. With a nearly constant influx of emails, phone calls, text messages, not to mention frequent meetings, many of us feel overwhelmed and that we don’t have enough time to be productive. Incorporating everyday mindfulness strategies into your work routine can increase your concentration, reduce stress, ...

If you’ve attended AAFCS Annual Conferences before, you may be wondering why certain changes were made to the 2019 conference , including using a universal versus a focused theme! In 2017 , AAFCS staff researched trends in the conference industry and examin ed the needs reported by conference attendees and partners . Some of the conference changes will roll out in 2020, but the first and most visible change was the move from a separate theme each year to our signature brand, the AAFCS Annual Conference & Expo!  Reasons for this change include: AAFCS member feedback has indicated that often, FCS professionals are not able to ...

Thanks to  Dr. Kelly Schoonaert , Associate Professor of Health Promotion and Human Development at the University of Wisconsin Stevens Point for this submission.  “Mindfulness” is a buzz word invoked to deal with today’s multi-faceted, fast-paced life that generates seemingly never-ending responsibilities .  But how do you “do” mindfulness so that it is helpful in reducing stress, not just adding one more thing to manage and be aware of?  One way that can help make mindfulness a useful and important practice is to become cognizant of our motivations or reasons for doing something and the choices we make when we decide to take one action instead of another.  ...