Center for Family Studies and Educational Advancement

Offering parenting classes and family education programs to students and parents throughout Central Virginia.

Where parents learn positive discipline skills, methods to encourage their children, and enhanced communication skills. The Center also provides a variety of special programs of interest to families.

Contact US

University of Lynchburg
Center for Family Studies and Educational Advancement
1501 Lakeside Drive
Lynchburg, VA 24501

For Parents

The Center’s parenting class, based on the Systematic Training for Effective Parenting (STEP) program, is a seven-week, video-based discussion course that meets once a week for 90 minutes. The focus is on living with and rearing children. The classes are free to parents in the area and are taught annually in selected local elementary schools. Similar programs are offered in middle schools.

What do parents learn?

The ideas in the class are based on the work of Rudolf Dreikurs who believed that children should be responsible for their behavior. Parents learn why their children misbehave and then develop skills to respond to these misbehaviors.

Parents master communication skills that usually improve the atmosphere in the family. They discover how to be encouraging rather than discouraging. And they begin to focus on what is important and learn how to sidestep unnecessary power struggles.

Many unexpected benefits are realized. For example, parents frequently report that the principles learned in class help them work more successfully with other adults in their lives or in their workplaces.

Most parents soon realize that without education, they tend to rear their children the same way their parents reared them. There is nothing wrong with this, but times change. Children’s lives are more complicated today, and society provides relentless temptations and pressures.

How can I participate as a parent?

If you are interested in parent education programs, call your child’s school counselor to find out when the next class is offered, or call the Center.

Seven weeks will pass quickly whether or not you take this course – think how much better off you may be in seven weeks if you invest 90 minutes each week to talk with other parents and professionals about your family!

For Educators and Students

Benefits to School Principals

The Center works with schools, educators, and parents. To find out more about working with us to provide free parenting classes on-site, contact us.

If one of your teachers or your school counselor takes LC’s parenting class and/or offers to co-teach the class, the Center will serve your school as soon as possible. Schools need 8 – 12 parents to make a successful class.

A Program for Teachers and Counselors

Many professionals take Parent Education (Coun 635) as a degree requirement, for license renewal, or to complete their 60 hours toward becoming a licensed professional counselor. This is an experience-oriented class that allows each student to take the parenting course in class while co-teaching it in a local school.

For more information, contact Dr. Jeanne Booth.

Educational Advancement

The Center’s focus on educational advancement results in collaboration with local schools and the community to enhance educational programs with a particular focus on specialized instruction and curriculum. Initiatives include diversity training and classroom management, faculty-student research, outreach programs, and collaborative college-school projects.

Center for Family Studies and Educational Advancement Scholarship Program

Each year the Center through the Office of Graduate Success offers partial scholarship support to graduate students who are pursuing their MEd and who participate in the Center’s parent education program.

For more information, please contact the Office of Graduate Success at 434.544.8300 or gradsuccess@lynchburg.edu.