A strength of the department is the number of faculty who conduct both basic and translational research with a focus on close relationships—whether within couples, parent-child relationships, or families broadly defined. Our faculty and graduate students have remarkable breadth and depth in the area of Couples, Parents, and Families. Several of our faculty have held leadership roles in the National Council on Family Relations (NCFR), an international society devoted to the study of families and couples. Strengths of UConn HDFS research in this area include:

• Range of relationships considered: Researchers examine heterosexual and LGBTQ+ couples, interracial marriages and families, parent-child relationships at different stages of the lifespan, foster and step-parenting, grandparenting, remarriage, and caregiving between adult children and their aging parents.
• Lifespan perspective: Populations of interest range from infancy to older adulthood.
• Studied in context: Faculty research interests address multiple aspects of social contexts, including culture, economic status, immigration status, family structure, gender, caregiving, parent work environment.
• Basic and translational research: Faculty consider both theoretical and applied research questions, including intervention programs for parents and families, clinical processes and outcomes in couples’ therapy, interventions to promote the physical and mental health of children and families
• Various aspects of family studied: Research includes couples’ parenting priorities; parenting biracial teenagers; parenting immigrant children; parental acceptance and rejection; post-divorce adjustment for parents and children; identity formation and negotiation during family transitions; high conflict couples; family systems and processes; coparenting.

Range of outcomes: Faculty research addresses many outcomes associated with couple, parenting, and family interactions, such as young children’s empathy and temperament, child mental health, risk of divorce, and sexual and reproductive health.

Several important parenting intervention programs and lines of research evaluating parenting interventions have their origins or are currently based in our department. We also have expertise in methods to study couples, parents, and families, such as methodological and measurement issues with dyadic data. HDFS students also have access to a number of other resources both in and outside of the department, including the Center for Applied Research in Human Development; the Center for the Study of Interpersonal Acceptance & Rejection; the Center for the Study of Culture, Health and Human Development; the Institute for Collaboration on Health, Intervention, and Policy, the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Health; and the Collaboratory on School and Child Health.

Students can also pursue relevant concurrent certificate programs, including Culture, Health, and Human Development, Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Quantitative Research Methods, and Program Evaluation. The Graduate School website has a full list of all available Certificate Programs for graduate students.