North Carolina State University, College of Humanities and Social Sciences, Center for Family and Community Engagement Records 2002-2025

The Center for Family and Community Engagement is a public service and research center at North Carolina State University, whose mission is to promote safe, healthy, and productive families and communities. The work of the Center has been ongoing since 1998. The Center itself was approved by the NC State University Board of Trustees on September 18, 2008. The Center collaborates with state, national, and international organizations to offer training, program support, and evaluation for family-centered meetings.

The Center emphasizes Family Group Conferencing and Child and Family Team Meetings, which encourage partnerships among families, neighbors, community members, and public agencies to provide nurturing environments for children. The Center primarily offers training and support for family advocacy organizations and child welfare workers across the state.

Major projects have included the NC Family-Centered Meetings Project (2002-2012), which was a coordinated effort with the NC Division of Social Services to develop practical guidance for child and family team meeting providers. Another major project was the School-Based Child and Family Teams Project (2006-2008), in which the Center partnered with selected schools in four counties (Alamance, Duplin, Scotland, and Cherokee) to prevent at-risk students’ academic failure and out-of-home placement.

More recently, the Center has collaborated with national and international associations as part of its commitment to family engagement, restorative justice, women and children’s rights, and responsible fatherhood.

Approved by the NC State University Board of Trustees on September 18, 2008, the Center’s origins lie a decade earlier in the work of Dr. Joan Pennell, a professor in the Department of Social Work and the Center’s Founding Director.

The records of the Center for Family and Community Engagement at North Carolina State University include staff meeting minutes, correspondence, training manuals, evaluation plans, reports, archived web content, and organizational charts from 2002 through 2017.

Earlier materials focus on the NC Family-Centered Meetings Project and best practices for training child and family support teams across the state. Later materials reflect the Center’s School-Based Child and Family Team Project.

Many materials address the ways in which the Center can adapt their programs and curricula to local needs in various counties, and how programs can promote cultural sensitivity and technological literacy. Funding and hiring concerns are also consistent topics in the staff meeting minutes.

These records are arranged chronologically.

Materials in this collection are arranged chronologically.

The NC State University Libraries generally claims only physical ownership of most Special Collections materials. These materials are made available for use in research, teaching, and private study, pursuant to U.S. Copyright law. Libraries staff are unable to advise on copyright and other legal matters; the user assumes full responsibility for any use of the materials, including but not limited to, infringement of copyright and publication rights of reproduced materials. Helpful resources for assessing copyright include Cornell Libraries' "Copyright Services: Copyright Term and the Public Domain" and copyright.gov. This collection may contain materials with sensitive or confidential information about identifiable living individuals, which may be protected under federal or state laws and regulations. Researchers are advised that there may be legal ramifications for disclosing this information.

The University Archives operates in accordance with the State Public Records Act, with unrestricted access to records not covered by state and federal statutes and regulations.

[Identification of item], North Carolina State University, College of Humanities and Social Sciences, Center for Family and Community Engagement Records, UA 120.046, Special Collections Research Center, North Carolina State University Libraries, Raleigh, NC

Transferred from Center for Family and Community Engagement, 2011 (Accession 2011.0083). Web content harvested using the Internet Archive's Archive-It web archiving service.

Processed by Cathy Dorin-Black, June 2011; finding aid created by Cathy Dorin-Black, June 2011; updated by Rose Buchanan, October 2014; web content processed by Kate Phillips, 2025 October.