CARE Lab at UGA

Happy World Teachers’ Day! 🍎📚

Today, we celebrate the teachers and educators who inspire, support, and empower students every day. Thank you for the time, care, and dedication you bring to your classrooms and communities. Your impact reaches far beyond the classroom!

🤝 Collaborator Spotlight

This month, we're excited to highlight Dr. Ashlyn Rollins-Koon. Dr. Rollins-Koons is a financial planner in Chico, California, and teaches finance courses at Kansas State University and California State University, Chico. Dr. Rollins-Koons collaborates with the CARE Lab to conduct studies that examine links between financial and relational well-being for couples.

Dr. Rollins-Koons research focuses on...

Behavioral finance, financial planning practice, and financial well-being, with a focus on translating academic research into practical strategies for financial advisers.

Recent publications from Dr. Rollins-Koons:
- Preparing the next generation: how trust, gender, and academic performance shape financial planning students' ai adoption. (Financial Planning Review, 2026).
- The science of building trust and commitment in financial planning: Using structural equation modeling to examine antecedents to trust and commitment. (Journal of Financial Planning, 2022).
- Advisers Don’t Need Rational Clients (Financial Planning Association, September 2026) https://www.financialplanningassociation.org/learning/publications/journal/SEP26-advisers-dont-need-rational-clients-OPEN

Her work expands to topics such as financial risk tolerance, housing and financial well-being, financial anxiety, trust and communication in financial planning, retirement behavior, and gender disparities in the financial planning profession.

We greatly value collaborators like Dr. Rollins-Koons and her drive to bridge the academic world to reach real world people to make financial knowledge accessible.

Learn more about Dr. Rollins-Koons 's work: https://experts.ksu.edu/ashlyn.rollins-koons

What skills help couples build stronger, healthier relationships? And how can we measure whether those skills are improving?

CARE Lab researchers helped develop and validate the Couple Relationship Skills Inventory (CRSI), a research-based measure designed to capture the many skills that contribute to healthy couple relationships.

Rather than treating “relationship skills” as a single concept, the CRSI examines multiple skill areas, providing a more detailed picture of couples’ strengths and areas for growth. The measure can also be used in couple relationship education programs to help researchers and educators evaluate how couples’ skills develop over time.

The study found that the CRSI is a reliable and valid tool and supports its use across heterosexual couples diverse in race, income, education, and age.

📖 Read the full article:
Adler-Baeder, F., Futris, T. G., McGill, J., Richardson, E. W., & Yildirim, E. D. (2022). Validating the couple relationship skills inventory. Family Relations, 71(1), 279–306.

https://doi.org/10.1111/fare.12590

Meet Sue Shinn! 👋

As the Outreach and Recruitment Coordinator for Elevate Couples Georgia, Sue helps connect couples and families with programs that support healthy relationships and strong communities.

A lifelong animal lover, she has four dogs, has been married to her husband, Adam, for 26 years, and is the proud mom of three amazing boys. ❤️🐾

On this September 11, we pause to remember the lives lost, honor the heroes who stepped forward, and hold close the families and communities who continue to carry the impact of that day.

May we never forget the importance of compassion, unity, and supporting one another, especially in difficult times. 🤍

This month, we're excited to highlight Dr. Jeneé Duncan, Assistant Professor of Prevention Science and Human Development and Family Science in the Department of Family, Youth, and Community Sciences at the University of Florida and a CARE Lab alumna.

Dr. Duncan's research focuses on strengthening couple and family relationships across diverse populations. Her work examines relationship stability, coparenting, family resilience, and the experiences of historically underserved families, with the goal of developing culturally relevant programs and interventions that promote healthy relationships and family well-being.

Recent publications from Dr. Duncan include research on:

1. Relationship dissolution among unmarried parents through the Vulnerability–Stress–Adaptation framework (Journal of Family Psychology, 2024)

2. Latinx adolescent parents' experiences with stigma, social support, and school-related outcomes (Journal of Research on Adolescence, 2026)

3. Relationship and family processes that support diverse couples and families.

In addition to her publications, Dr. Duncan's research advances our understanding of how prevention programs and culturally responsive approaches can strengthen relationships and improve outcomes for couples, parents, and families.

We're grateful for collaborators like Dr. Duncan whose scholarship continues to advance family science while creating meaningful, real-world impact.

Learn more about Dr. Duncan's work: https://fycs.ifas.ufl.edu/directory/jenee-duncan/

Can stronger relationship skills help reduce parenting stress?

Research from the CARE Lab examined how couple relationship education influenced relationship skills and parenting stress before and during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Led by CARE Lab alumna Dr. Avery Campbell, the study found that couples strengthened their communication, conflict management, and relationship skills regardless of when they participated. However, improvements in relationship skills were linked to lower parenting stress only for couples who participated before the pandemic.

These findings suggest that healthy relationship skills can help families thrive under typical circumstances. They also highlight that major external stressors, such as a pandemic, can limit the extent to which stronger relationship skills translate into lower parenting stress.

Read the article by clicking this link: https://doi.org/10.1111/famp.13099

Our team was honored to attend the International Association for Relationship Research (IARR) Conference in Scotland! 🌍

During the conference, Dr. Ted Futris and Dr. Evin Richardson presented their research, contributing to important conversations on relationship and family science while representing the University of Georgia and Elevate Couples Georgia.

We’re grateful for opportunities like these to collaborate with researchers from around the world, share our work, and bring back new insights that strengthen relationship education and research in Georgia and beyond.

Looking to build your social media marketing skills while making an impact? 📱

Elevate Couples Georgia is looking for a Social Media Intern to join our team! This is a great opportunity for a UGA student interested in marketing, communications, public relations, or digital media to gain hands-on experience creating content that supports healthy relationships across Georgia.

Interested? We’d love to hear from you!

UGA students can login to their Handshake account and apply here: https://app.joinhandshake.com/public/jobs/11304885

Healthy couple relationships may play an important role in foster parent retention. ❤️

CARE Lab researchers found that foster caregivers who reported stronger couple relationship quality were more likely to want to continue fostering. The findings also suggested that foster mothers' perceptions of relationship quality were particularly important, with lower relationship quality being associated with a greater likelihood of wanting to stop fostering within the following year.

These findings highlight the value of supporting couple relationships throughout the fostering journey. Relationship education, communication skills, coparenting support, and access to counseling may not only strengthen couples—they may also help sustain foster families.

📚 Richardson, E. W., Mallette, J. K., Futris, T. G., Brown, R., Starke, J., Cui, S., & Shepherd, L. (2025). Dyadic Reports of Interparental Relationship Quality and Intentions to Continue Fostering Among Coupled Foster Caregivers. Family Process, 64, e70044. https://doi.org/10.1111/famp.70044