Webinars
Creating brave spaces for bold conversations
The Institute for Family is dedicated to strengthening and uplifting families by fostering meaningful conversations and collaboration across key sectors, including Education, Public Health, Child Welfare, and Community Development. We bring together experts and influencers to explore solutions that impact families’ daily lives while ensuring their well-being.
Light Lab Live
Join us for Light Lab Live, the Institute for Family’s monthly lunch and learn series where we dive into timely topics that shape the lives of families and the professionals who support them across sectors.
Each session will be held via Microsoft Teams from 12:00pm – 1:00pm
Bring your lunch, your curiosity, and your lived or learned expertise as we work together to create community conditions that uplift and strengthen the whole family.
Upcoming Light Lab Live Webinars
The Helper’s Dilemma: Are the professionals hired to stabilize families themselves financially stable?
June 24, 2026
12:00pm – 1:00pm
Register here
She starts before 8 a.m. and carries the stories of 22 families. She knows every child’s name, every challenge they face, every resource they are waiting on—and the crises forming just beneath the surface. She is exactly the professional North Carolina families depend on. And yet, by the ALICE Report’s definition, she is financially unstable herself.
This webinar explores the growing reality known as the helper’s dilemma: the systems designed to support vulnerable families are powered by professionals who are themselves struggling to make ends meet. Social workers, home visitors, childcare providers, direct care workers, and teacher assistants form the backbone of family support—and many earn wages that fall below the cost of living in the very communities they serve.
Participants will examine the issue through a data-informed lens, drawing on insights from the ALICE Report, Bureau of Labor Statistics wage data, and North Carolina workforce research. Together, these sources reveal the scale of financial instability among helping professionals, the impact of low wages and high turnover, and the consequences for families when trusted providers cannot afford to stay in their roles.
Bring your lunch and we will:
- unpack the data in plain language—registrants receive a PDF summary of the AI analysis
- explore what the data means for children, families, and communities
- connect findings to real‑world practice across systems
Join the conversation and connect with peers across sectors who share your commitment to supporting families across the state.
This webinar is designed for leaders, educators, policymakers, and practitioners committed to building a more equitable and sustainable support system—one that truly cares for those who care for others.
Past Webinars
Past Light Lab Live Webinars
Time Poverty: The Hidden Cost of Low Wages Isn’t Just Money
May 27, 2026
Low wages don’t only leave families short on cash. They can also leave families short on time. Part 2 in the Light Lab Live Series using AI assisted synthesis explores how work schedules, long commutes, lack of childcare, and uneven access to services can quietly consume the hours families need to rest, connect, and care for children.
This session pulls together three key data sources along with other child development research:
- BLS American Time Use Survey — how working adults actually spend their hours
- U.S. Census commute data — time lost to getting to and from work
- NC childcare desert mapping — where families spend extra time patching together care
Why Time Poverty Matters…
Individually, these datasets tell partial stories. Read together, they reveal how time poverty functions as a system and how time scarcity can show up across schools, health care, and family support systems. Consider this…
When One Job Isn’t Enough
The ALICE Report documents that 15 of North Carolina’s top 20 occupations by employment volume pay below $20 per hour. For workers in these jobs like retail, food service, healthcare support, building maintenance, childcare… one full-time position frequently does not generate enough income to cover the ALICE Threshold. The result is often a second job and lost time.
Living on the Edge: What Data Reveals about North Carolina Families
April 15, 2026
Frontline professionals have limited time but also have a need and desire to engage in better conversations about data, context, and impact. These sessions make it easier to access the information that matters using AI‑assisted research to pull together publicly available datasets and turn them into practitioner‑ready insights.
Designed for time‑strapped professionals, leaders and champions, this facilitated conversation provides a synthesized analysis that would otherwise take hours to find.
Session 1-Living on the Edge, examines the collective implications of three major datasets: ALICE Report, the NC Budget & Tax Center’s Economic County Snapshots, and the Education Law Center’s Making the Grade 2025 report
In this webinar we will:
- unpack the data in plain language—registrants receive a PDF summary of the analysis
- explore what the data means for children, families, and communities
- connect findings to real‑world practice across systems
Past Webinars
The Mission InCommon Webinar Series
These compelling conversations feature professionals in key sectors like education, public health, child welfare and community development who share a common mission: Working in sync to keep families safely together, outside of systems whenever possible.
Empowering Families & Building Community: Schools as Hubs for Cross-Sector Collaboration
Our second Mission InCommon Webinar will featured an in depth discussion with Greg Schermbeck, the founder and principal of SchermCo. SchermCo. is a national social-impact implementation firm that offers strategic advising, organizational development, and implementation services to schools and social-impact organizations that support underserved communities.
In this conversation, Schermbeck shared his bold vision for empowering families and building cross-sector partnerships that transform schools into vibrant centers of support, equity, and innovation. The session explored real-world strategies, inspiring case studies, and future-forward thinking that challenge the status quo and invite us to reimagine how education systems can work hand-in-hand with health, housing, and advocacy sectors. Whether you’re an educator, policymaker, nonprofit leader, or community advocate, this is your chance to be part of a conversation that puts families at the heart of change.
View the recording here.
From Fragmented to Fortified-Building Bridges for Family Well-Being
Our first Mission InCommon Webinar featured an in-depth discussion with Omari Richins, a dynamic and influential fresh voice in the field of public health. Omari will share his thoughts regarding how the various disciplines in public health must come together to form strong, resilient systems for our communities.
View the recording here.