Photo by Mike Brothers
Moultrie Douglas Extension educator Cheri Burcham introduces Judy Brown to the first of the Memory Game story cards. Brown had a lion card, and she went to the zoo. Nina Glazebrook had to remember Brown’s story while adding her own story to the list as they traveled around the table at Mid-Illinois Senior Center in Sullivan last week.

•July 6, 2016•

By Emily Stutzman
For the New Progress

University of Illinois Extension is about helping people help themselves.” This is how Cheri Burcham, Family Life Educator with the University of Illinois Extension, describes her job in a nutshell.

Burcham has worked with Extension since 1998 and says that the chance to reach people of all ages, empowering them and assisting them in attaining a better quality of life, is what makes her career so worthwhile.

Burcham covers the five counties of Coles, Douglas, Moultrie, Cumberland, and Shelby and is one of the six Family Life Educators in the state of Illinois.

As a Family Life Educator, she is able to offer programs based on research from the world-renowned Beckman Institute at the University of Illinois. She remarks that, “My job as an educator is to take the research from the University of Illinois and bring it to the public in a way that they can use in their everyday lives.”

One aspect of her job is using that research to work with parents and childcare providers. For instance, Burcham teaches workshops and programs for groups of people concerning healthy communication within families, helping them build healthy relationships and become stronger together. Although working in group settings and with presentations is more typical, Burcham affirms that she also aids individuals who come to her with specific questions.      Login or Subscribe to read the rest of this story.