Part of the Balancing Life series. This session addresses needs for those home with young children as work demands continue and discusses the realities and strategies to navigate working from home with young children, even toddlers and preschoolers. Tips are shared with Q&A opportunities.

Balancing Life series. This session focuses on Marital Relations. Staying at home and practicing social distancing in order to slow the spread of COVID-19 can strain even the strongest of relationships. Couples are suddenly spending all of their time together, while also juggling their work and parenting responsibilities. Add in housework, money concerns and other stressors, and many couples are feeling the strain. Some may even worry that their marriages won't survive. In this session, Dr. Megan Dolbin-MacNab, Director of Virginia Tech's marriage and family therapy doctoral program, will discuss ways to take care of your relationship in the midst of COVID-19. Tune in to learn more!

The COVID-19 pandemic has been stressful and has caused anxiety for many people. These emotions can be particularly strong in young people as they adjust to new schedules, separate from their friends, and find a new normal all while viewing the threat of illness and death from the pandemic. On top of that, they are around their family members all day, every day, with limited access to activities and social events. In this session, Dr. Kim Allen, Director of the Youth, Family, and Community Sciences academic program at North Carolina State University along with her two daughters, 16 year old Sofia and 19 year old Fiona, will present coping strategies for dealing with stress and anxiety in youth.

Many older adults' patterns of giving and receiving care have been disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic. In this session, we highlight situations older adults may be experiencing and how they can support well-being for themselves and others.

Part of the Balancing Life series, this session tackles questions, such as with schools closed parents may find themselves working from home with the additional job of teacher. This session addresses the question many parents are asking, how to help your kids learn and keep them occupied while you work — and actually complete work responsibilities.

This video is for family members who are looking to gain more ideas to enjoy time together, especially with varying age groups and interests.

This session provides strategies and tangible ways to assist teens and adults with the varied impacts COVID-19 pandemic having on mental health. A mental health specialist leads this session, supported by the Virginia Cooperative Extension Human Development Program team, in partnership with North Carolina State.

We hear it all the time: you need to establish boundaries to have a healthy relationship. With COVID, setting boundaries with the people we love and work with has become even more important. Creating boundaries helps ensure safety, but knowing what boundaries to implement can be confusing. This session explores boundaries related to COVID in family life.

Many of us are grappling with how we respond personally, and even how to talk with our children, about race relations and current events. In this session, we share strategies for engaging in productive, positive and meaningful discussions at a one on one level. Members of Virginia's Coming Together for Racial Understanding Cooperative Extension team (Crystal Tyler-Mackey, Maurice Smith and Thomas Woodson) along with NC State Extension Youth Development Specialist Maru Gonzalez will lead the session.

In this session members of the Virginia and North Carolina Coming Together for Racial Understanding teams begin laying the foundation for listening to understand as a key step towards acknowledging one another's lived experiences. This acknowledgement, without debate or rebuttal, is essential to feeling heard and moving productively forward towards racial understanding.

A panel of youth share their ideas and perspectives on the current conversations about race and racial justice, including the role of youth in supporting community healing. Current programming examples in Virginia and North Carolina that amplify youth voice using various art forms and digital media are also shared.

This is a conversation with current Virginia Teacher of the Year, Andrea Carson Johnson and her colleague, a previous Teacher of the Year, Ariane Williams. They will discuss what schooling will look like this year, whether in the building or virtually, what the expectations are for parents, talk about students in special or exceptional education, and take questions from participants.

Join as 2020 Virginia Teacher of the Year talks "Back to School. "With the varied situations and options related to the return to schools, many families are feeling challenged with decisions, planning, preparation, and communicating with their children what to expect. This is especially tough when there is so much unknown. This session will highlight some of those concerns and share ideas or resources to support families in this regard.

Preparing to load the yellow bus or power up the laptop? Between schedules, work spaces, routines and adjustments, getting into a rhythm that works for your family can be a huge relief. In this session, our presenter shares ideas that may spark thoughts that you can use in your household.

During these unprecedented times, people are feeling stressors from multiple areas. There are debates and conflicts all around us. Sometimes this spills over into our relationships, especially when we may have differing thoughts, opinions or values regarding current events. Join expert presenter Alan Rasmussen as he guides us through ways we can communicate across those differences, recognize our reaction patterns and strengthen relationships despite challenges.

Intergenerational programs are most effective when staff members of the adult and child programs collaborate to plan activities. Practically speaking, collaborating takes a concerted effort. Merely setting aside time to discuss plans is a hurdle. Children and adults of different ages have different interests, strengths, and needs. Staff members can review the developmental strengths and needs of children and adults in the program to inform activities for the two age groups. Staff members benefit from their partner’s expertise, which makes planning easier. Participants will benefit from plans that best match their interests and abilities.

Intergenerational programs are most effective when participation is voluntary. It is important that potential participants of an intergenerational activity are given a choice of participating in the activity or not. In communicating, staff should be encouraging and enthusiastic, but not coercive. Once informed, participants can make a decision concerning their ability and willingness to join. Some participants may need time to ease into the routine of intergenerational contact, and staff can support that. By providing a choice, staff members set the tone of the activity in a positive light, while increasing the comfort of all involved.

Intergenerational programs are most effective when participants are prepared ahead of time and reflect on activities afterward.

A social history is basically the accounting of an individual’s life — their interests, career, relationships, the ways they have coped, and how they have defined themselves.

Although all children are different, there is a predictable sequence in their development. Age- and role-appropriate educational opportunities are critical to a quality early childhood education program.

The partners in intergenerational programs are the adults and the children. Individually, children may not have developed particular skills in their thinking or motor functioning.

Successful programs carefully design the physical space, the program, and related policies to be flexible.

Intergenerational programs are most effective when facilitators consider the social environment, including the role of staff members.

There is a chance that clients in an intergenerational program will need adaptive equipment. The primary reason to consider adaptive equipment is to remove barriers to participation.

Documentation starts with careful observation, then evolves into a display of learning processes. Documentation has grown in popularity as a way to review children’s work at various stages of completion. Photographs, work samples, transcripts of conversations, and comments accompany the display. This documentation is then shared with parents as well as discussed among teachers.

This toolkit provides an overview of facilitation techniques to promote behavior change, along with specific instructions and resources for educators to learn and apply skills necessary to implement them.