Marriage and Family Therapists:

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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.

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

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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

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Convergence

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

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Marriage Savers

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

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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

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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

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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

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Cost of Divorce

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

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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

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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

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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.

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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

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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

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30 Years of Research

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

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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
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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

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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

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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)

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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
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Consciousness-Raising Campaigns

• 1. The 10,000 signs project
• 2. Ultramercials
• Create 40,000 inquiries
• 3. Public Service Announcements
• 4. Events
• 5. Newspaper columns

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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

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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

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High School

• Youth Relationship Education Programs
• High School Health Psychology classes

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Partner Selection Programs

• Smart Dating Skills
• Great Choices
• Being a Great Partner

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Engaged Couples

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

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Marriage Enhancement Marriage Skills Training

• Communication Skills
• Conflict Resolution Skills
• Relationship Maintenance
• Problem Solving Skills

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New Families Programs

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

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Un-married low income pregnant couples

• Stability Issues
• Finances
• Communication Conflict Resolution Skills
• Parenting
• Father Involvement

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Mentoring

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

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Stepparent Programs

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

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Divorce Reduction Programs

• 60 only one person wants divorce

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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
• -

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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

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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

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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

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MFTsA Vital Part

• Training
• Knowledge
• Experience
• Connections
• Status
• Leaders

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Benefits for MFTs

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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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.

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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

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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

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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

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• Its For the Children