American Association of Family and Consumer Sciences: review and resources

AAFCS

The American Association of Family and Consumer Services (AAFCS) is a professional association that acts as advisory body, a think tank and research institute (AAFCS, 2013). The association was founded in 1909 as the American Home Economics Association, and the organization has evolved since that time (Ibid). The organization describes its two main activities as follows. The first core activity is to connect professionals. The association is a body of over 6000 professionals, so membership in the AAFCS provides ample networking opportunities for its members. It hosts conferences, is involved in publishing, and has created online communities as well in order to assist with this mandate (Ibid). The second stated objective of the AAFCS is to "touch lives" (Ibid). This refers to the educational component of the organization's activities. Its publications and conferences promote ideas and disseminate information, and this touches people's lives.

The organization is founded on a set of shared values that help to illustrate the raison d'etre of the organization. The family is a fundamental unit of society -- this comes from the home economics roots of the AAFCS. Diversity is a core value as well, as is a lifetime of learning. The organization believes in the value of ethical behavior, but also in innovation. The organization also publishes a mission statement and a vision statement, both containing the phrase "achieve optimal quality of life," and restating elements of the core values (Ibid).

Digging deeper into the organization's website, it is explained what it does. The phrase family and consumer services still relates to the idea of home economics. This is helping consumers to make better decisions about purchases for the home and ways of living. The idea is to enhance the lives of consumers and make those lives better (Ibid). There is a professional practice, and this is divided into settings based on the age and education level of the learner, so that the lessons are appropriate.

Since AAFCS is a professional organization, useful for information, advocacy and networking, it helps to understand just who might be a member. The members are typically educators, since they are the ones who teach FCS, and these instructors can be found at many different educational levels (Ibid). The transformation of the name of the organization reflects the increasing complexity of the educational offering in the field. Today's FCS classes take traditional skills like cooking and sewing and apply to them economics, finance, sustainability, science and nutrition. These changes have been in part driven by the AAFCS, but the organization has also contributed to helping practitioners come to grips with the changes in their industry (Ibid).

Almost all of the work that the AAFCS does is away from the public. There is tangential dealing with the public, however, when the organization becomes engaged in public policy. First, it helps to guide what is taught in FCS courses, but beyond that it also contributes to political discussions that can affect laws (Ibid). Again, this relates to its informational role.