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Marriage and Family Therapists:

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... 50% divorce rate. Convergence ... Divorce Rate Correlates - Children. Children who live with their own two ... services cost estimated at $30,000 per divorce ... – PowerPoint PPT presentation

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Title: Marriage and Family Therapists:


1
Marriage and Family Therapists
  • What Is In It for You?
  • An Overview of the Field of Marriage Education
  • by
  • Carolyn Rich Curtis, Ph.D.
  • Patty Howell, Ed.M., A.G.C.

2
  • Dennis Stoica, MBA
  • Carolyn Rich Curtis, Ph.D.
  • Patty Howell, Ed.M., A.G.C.
  • Jason Krafsky
  • Kerri Strong
  • Ralph Jones

3
The Origins of Marriage Education
  • Marriage Education Movement
  • Diane Sollee, MFT, AAMFT, 1989
  • Countrys rampant divorce rate
  • Social breakdown
  • More skilled therapists
  • No difference in 50 divorce rate

4
Convergence
  • Handful of colleagues determined to find ways of
    saving relationships
  • Investigating the determinants of marital
    outcomes

5
Marriage Savers
  • Newspaper Man
  • Modesto, CA
  • Community Marriage Policy
  • 50 reduction of divorce rate
  • 20 years
  • 200 communities

6
Crisis Creates Opportunity - Sollee
  • -Marriage Education
  • Couples learn and practice skills that foster
    marital success.
  • -Sollee
  • (1) The Coalition for Marriage, Family, and
    Couples Education (CMFCE).
  • (2) Smart Marriages
  • Comprehensive Marriage Education clearinghouse
  • (3) Annual Conference Best and Brightest
    in Marriage Education

7
Divorce Rate Correlates - Couples
  • Decreased Mental And Physical Health
  • Shorter Life
  • Lower Income
  • Increased Risk Of Poverty
  • Lower Productivity At Work
  • Increased Domestic Violence
  • More Crime And Violent Crime
  • Higher Rates Of Suicide
  • Damaged Relationships With Their Children

8
Divorce Rate Correlates - Children
  • Children who live with their own two married
    parents
  • Physical health
  • Higher rates of graduating from college
  • Achieve higher status jobs
  • Less divorce in own life
  • Less truancy
  • Less antisocial behavior
  • Delay becoming sexually active

9
Cost of Divorce
  • -The personal cost of divorce
  • ?Emotional
  • ? Financial
  • ? Family turmoil
  • -The break-up rate for cohabitating couples is
    even greater.

10
Public Cost of Divorce
  • -County, state, federal and taxpayer costs
  • -The overall social services cost estimated at
    30,000 per divorce
  • -With California's divorces 150,000 annually
  • -Total 4.5 billion each year from government
    funds
  • -Money goes to divorce clean-up and adjustment,
    not divorce prevention

11
Seeking Cultural Change
  • -Create full public awareness
  • -Marriage is skills-based
  • -Skills can be learned
  • -Acquiring skills part of everyones life
  • -Enormous Challenge
  • -Time for action

12
Healthy Marriage Initiative
  • -Administration for Children and Families
  • -Dr. Wade Horn, Assistant Secretary for Children
    and Families states
  • Our emphasis is on healthy Marriage not
    marriage for the sake of marriage at any cost
    but healthy marriages that provide a strong and
    stable environment for raising children. It is
    about helping couples who choose marriage for
    themselves gain access to the skills and
    knowledge necessary to form and sustain healthy
    marriages.

13
Federal Funding
  • Healthy Marriage Demonstration Grants, 2006
  • -150 Million each year over the next five years
    for Healthy Marriages and Promoting Responsible
    Fatherhood grants
  • -Funding 224 of the most promising projects
  • -A cautious first step to assess the potential
    value of Marriage Education to strengthen
    marriages and families

14
Complex Divorce Problem
  • No-Fault divorce
  • Belief systems Lucky in Love, Soul Mates
  • Commitment phobic
  • Over valuing marriage
  • Better to have a child out of wedlock than get
    divorced
  • Under value marriage
  • The first marriage is just practice
  • Most couples do not know how to create and
    sustain a strong and successful marriage

15
30 Years of Research
  • John Gottmans Research
  • Love Lab
  • University of Washington
  • Gottmans
  • Six predictors of marital success
  • Ability to predict divorce

16
3 Streams of Marriage Education
  • 1. Teaching relationship skills to couples
  • 2. Raising cultural awareness about the benefits
    of a healthy marriage for couples, their children
    and for society

3. Making realistic expectations for marriage
17
Research Supporting Marriage Education
  • -A meta-analysis of 20 different marriage
    programs
  • 85 studies involving 3,886 couples
  • Demonstrate program effectiveness
  • The average couple participating improved their
    behavior and relationship
  • They were better off than more than 2/3 of the
    couples that didnt participate in any program
  • Giblin, Enrichment Outcome Research A
    Meta-Analysis of Premarital, Marital and Family
    Interventions, 1985

18
More Research
  • A meta-analysis of 16 studies
  • Communication skills
  • marital satisfaction
  • other relationship qualities
  • After training,
  • 83 outperform
  • couples without training
  • Butler Wampler, A Meta-Analysis on Research on
    the Couple Communication Program , 1999

19
Even More Research Longitudinal Study ME
  • High relationship satisfaction
  • Sexual satisfaction
  • Lower problem intensity
  • Three years after training
  • Greater communication skills
  • Less negative communication patterns
  • 12 years after training
  • Greater conflict-management skills
  • Fewer instances of physical violence 3-5 years
    after training.
  • Markman et.al, Prevention of Marital Distress A
    Longitudinal Investigation (1988) Preventing
    Marital Distress Through Communication and
    Conflict Management Training (1993)

20
The Research Continues
  • A meta-analysis of over 100 studies on the impact
    of Marriage Education,
  • Researchers found evidence
  • reduced strife
  • improved communication,
  • increased parenting skills,
  • increased stability,
  • enhanced marital happiness.

Fagan, Patterson, Rector, Marriage Welfare
Reform The Overwhelming Evidence that Marriage
Education Works, 2002
21
Consciousness-Raising Campaigns
  • 1. The 10,000 signs project
  • 2. Ultramercials
  • Create 40,000 inquiries
  • 3. Public Service Announcements
  • 4. Events
  • 5. Newspaper columns

22
Many Different Types of Marriage Education
Programs
  • University Extension Programs
  • Out of the Box Programs
  • Train the Trainer Programs
  • Various ethnic groups
  • Different Life Stages
  • Different Relationship problems
  • Different venues
  • Secular or Faith-based
  • Qualifications for leadership

23
Program Selection
  • Researched
  • Award-winning
  • Reputation of author
  • Experience of author
  • Flexibility Creativity
  • Participant driven model
  • Cost
  • Training
  • Materials
  • Links to comprehensive services
  • Support Services Available
  • Language consideration

24
High School
  • Youth Relationship Education Programs
  • High School Health Psychology classes

25
Partner Selection Programs
  • Smart Dating Skills
  • Great Choices
  • Being a Great Partner

26
Engaged Couples
  • 20 decide not to marry
  • Need time before announcements
  • Inventory
  • Learn skills readily

27
Marriage Enhancement Marriage Skills Training
  • Communication Skills
  • Conflict Resolution Skills
  • Relationship Maintenance
  • Problem Solving Skills

28
New Families Programs
  • Deal with Transition from Couple to Family
  • Communication Skills
  • Stress of New Family
  • Father Involvement
  • Child Development

29
Un-married low income pregnant couples
  • Stability Issues
  • Finances
  • Communication Conflict Resolution Skills
  • Parenting
  • Father Involvement

30
Mentoring
  • Modeling positive relationships
  • Sharing knowledge Experience
  • Networking
  • Community Marriage Policy

31
Stepparent Programs
  • Highest Incidence of Divorce
  • Unique Problems
  • Programs for Kids

32
Divorce Reduction Programs
  • 60 only one person wants divorce

33
Usefulness of
Relationship Skills Training
  • -Diane Sollee observes,
  • the skills taught are applicable to all
    persons,
  • whether single, married, cohabitating,
    gay/lesbian, and regardless of religious or
    ethnic backgrounds

34
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35
Our Vision
  • Imagine Impact of Communities
  • saturated with ME programs
  • for 15 Years.
  • Educate the couple
  • You change the family
  • You change the village
  • IMAGINE The ripple effect

36
Phase II The Challenge
  • Penetrate the culture
  • Few people know what ME is
  • Most couples never take a ME class
  • Things to learn
  • The best methods for reinforcing skills
  • How to integrate these skills into daily lives
  • How many Marriage Education classes the average
    person needs to take for their Relationship IQ
    to reach sufficiency

37
Phase II The Challenge
  • Few charitable foundations support Healthy
    Marriage or ME as endeavors
  • Our media - model poor relationships
  • Our schools do not include relationship curricula
  • Most medical professionals do not talk with their
    patients about the correlation between overall
    health and relationship health

38
Phase II The Challenge
  • Graduate MFT programs do not
  • require a couples therapy or ME training
  • A Bipartisan Government Effort
  • Use of State and Federal funds for prevention
  • -

39
Phase II The Challenge
  • Meanwhile, our fellow human beings blithely
    continue to fall in love, get married or not,
    have kids and skid into a high probability of
    divorce/relationship breakup, and experience
    numerous damaging consequences in their own
    lives, in the lives of their children and for our
    overall society.
  • Patty Howell

40
To-Do List We still have a long way to go!
  • Penetrate public consciousness
  • Increase awareness of the benefits of Healthy
    Marriages
  • Make Marriage Education a normal and expected
    part of the culture
  • Help couples become well-informed masters of
    marriage

41
Our Dream for Professionals
  • -We do not have to wait for couples to walk into
    our office, their faces filled with pain, at the
    11th hour of their marriage
  • -Prevention
  • -We can equip people with the skills for marital
    success
  • -We can make generational changes
  • -The 21st century can be the time when we started
    to figure out how to succeed at marital
    relationships
  • -Attitude Grow Good Corn

42
MFTsA Vital Part
  • Training
  • Knowledge
  • Experience
  • Connections
  • Status
  • Leaders

43
Benefits for MFTs
  • Increased need for services
  • Couples asking for help sooner
  • MFTs Instrument of cultural change

44
MFT Involvement
  • -Phase I One MFT joined by others
  • -Phase II NOW requires a deeper level of
    involvement
  • Create Cultural Change
  • More than ME classes
  • -Macro level vs. Micro Level
  • THINK BIG
  • THINK CREATIVELY

45
Avenues for MFT Involvement
  • Therapy Become a marriage-friendly therapist
  • Utilize relationship skills
  • Combine ME with therapy
  • Teach ME classes
  • Help us prepare for the coming demand for
    classes

46
Join Your Professional Association
  • Become an advocate for marriage Marriage
    Education
  • Join your local, state and federal organizations
  • Help these groups become marriage advocates
  • Become part of a community outreach program

47
Avenues for MFT Involvement
  • FOUND/ LEAD Healthy Marriage Coalitions
  • BECOME a board member
  • EDUCATE the public about
  • Benefits of Healthy Marriages
  • The correlation between ME
  • and marital success
  • WRITE articles
  • HELP the media produce
  • substantial articles built on solid data

48
Avenues for MFT Involvement
  • Infuse other professionals with passion for
    marriage
  • Conduct research on ME programs
  • Write grant applications
  • Assist in acquiring
  • donations
  • Make a donation to your local coalition

49
Avenues for MFT Involvement
  • The 1 Solution/ State Local
  • Train and supervise Mentor Couples
  • Consult with Healthy Marriage Coalitions on
    Domestic Violence
  • Refer couples to quality classes, books and
    resources on marital success
  • Utilize your Healthy Marriage Coalitions
    website
  • Develop specialized ME curricula and resource
    materials that build upon and expand existing
    programs

50
Avenues for Involvement
  • Become a Healthy Marriage advocate in your
    practice in your community
  • Government Officials
  • Business Leaders
  • Media
  • Tell them of the need for
  • Low-cost, quality resources that
  • help couples integrate relationship
  • skills into their everyday lives.

51
Avenues for Involvement
  • Join the Smart Marriages listserv
    (www.smartmarriages.com).
  • Attend the Smart Marriages Conference annually
  • Walk the talk in your own relationship
  • --increase your professional credibility
  • --experience all the pleasures and benefits

52
Get in the Boat
  • Social change is sorely needed
  • Broken relationships, broken families
  • Then pick up the pieces of their lives
  • There is space for everyone
  • We are rowing a very large boat
  • We need everyone
  • Take an oar
  • Contribute at your highest level
  • Everyone has a gift/part of solution

53
What is your place in this movement?
  • -Invest in creating social change
  • -APPLY
  • your knowledge
  • your skills
  • your vision
  • your passion
  • your dedication
  • -Together we can make a
  • DIFFERENCE

54
  • Its For the Children
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