Healthy Couple and Marital Relationships
The future health and stability of families and the prosperity of communities can be strongly influenced by the health and stability of marriages. Furthermore, the welfare of Georgia’s children can be greatly enhanced when their parents develop healthy relationship skills that result in healthy and stable families. The skills needed to develop and maintain a healthy and stable marriage can be learned! UGA Cooperative Extension is collaborating with community and state partners to offer programs and resources to help individuals and couples develop the skills needed to form and sustain healthy relationships. This website describes programs and resources for individuals and couples to develop and maintain healthy couple and marital relationships.
What are you interested in?
Helping Teens Develop Relationship Smarts
Relationship education is developmentally relevant and timely for youth because they are just beginning to have and understand romantic relationships. While some youth may have witnessed and learned about positive couple interactions from good models, many may have witnessed only poor models of couple relationships. Research has shown that educational programs on healthy relationships and marriages can help youth develop positive communication and conflict-management skills and reduce their risk for intimate partner violence and teen pregnancy. The decision-making and relationship-building skills youth can learn through this programming can also spill-over into other relationships (e.g., parent-child, teacher, peer, co-worker) as well.
Relationship Smarts is a research-based curriculum that incorporates hands-on activities to focus on skills and knowledge necessary for healthy dating relationships. The curriculum, developed by The Dibble Institute, offers developmentally appropriate information that address identity development, personal goals and values, what healthy (vs abusive) relationships look like, current relationship dynamics, important communication skills, and the promotion of future-orientated thinking about relationships.
College of Family and Consumer Sciences and 4-H Extension Agents in various counties across Georgia are trained to provide Relationship Smarts workshops – find a trained agent near you. If you are interested in more information, please contact your county College of Family and Consumer Sciences agent at 1-800-ASK-UGA1
Preparing Couples for Marriage
Estimates suggest that each year in Georgia, one couple files for divorce for every two couples who get married. Couples who participate in premarital counseling or educational programs and use the skills they learn tend to feel more satisfied in marriage and are at lower risk for divorce. Did you know that Georgia couples who receive at least 6 hours of premarital counseling or educational services before filing for their marriage license can receive a $35.00 discount on their marriage license fee? If you live in or near Clarke, Colquitt, Hall, Forsyth, Oconee, or Oglethorpe County and you are engaged to be married or considering marriage, participate in our PREPARE program!
Group Workshops schedule for Fall 2011 and Spring 2012!
Athens, GA - To Be Announced
(Contact Ted Futris, FACS State Extension Specialist, for more information: 706-542-7566 or tfutris@uga.edu).
Moultrie, GA - To Be Announced
(Contact Andrea Scarrow, FACS County Extension Agent, for more information: 229-616-7455 or ascarrow@uga.edu)
Indiviual sessions also available at the UGA ASPIRE Clinic. Call 706-542-4486 to schedule.
Healthy Relationship and Marriage Education Training (HRMET)
Children whose parents have healthy relationships are at less risk for abuse, experience greater stability, and fare better on a broad range of child outcomes.
The Healthy Relationship and Marriage Education Training (HRMET) project is a five-year $1.2 million federally funded multi-state cooperative agreement with the Administration on Children, Youth and Families Children's Bureau. The goal of the HRMET project is to meet the safety, permanency, and well-being needs of vulnerable children in the child welfare system by increasing child welfare workers’ access to and implementation of relationship and marriage education. Through a partnership among Cooperative Extension Specialists in Human Development and Family Studies from land-grant universities in Missouri, Georgia, North Carolina, Iowa and Arkansas, a curriculum has been developed to train child welfare professionals to assess and serve the relationship needs of the individuals and couples they work with. Currently, this training curriculum is being piloted through graduate course seminars and community workshops. As well, online courses and training modules will be developed to facilitate accessibility to the information and to reinforce in-person trainings.
The HRMET curriculum, based on concepts developed by the National Extension Relationship and Marriage Education Network (NERMEN), provides information and tools that child welfare workers can use in their direct work with families. This curriculum addresses healthy marriage and relationship skills for populations underserved in the general population and overrepresented in the child welfare system. Specific target populations include families who have few resources, single parents, immigrant families, and ethnically diverse families. Training participants are being prepared to teach skills that reinforce essential characteristics of healthy relationships and marriages.
For more information contact Dr. Ted Futris, State Extension Specialist in Family Life and Assistant Professor in the Department of Child and Family Development at the University of Georgia, at tfutris@uga.edu or 706-542-7566.
Funding for this project was provided by the United States Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Grant: 90CT0151. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families.
Smart Steps for Stepfamilies
Nearly half of all marriages consist of a remarriage for one or both partners. It is estimated that one in three children will spend time in a stepfamily-like household. The research is clear that stepfamilies experience unique family developmental patterns and face unique issues that are related to healthy marital and family functioning. Healthy couple and stepfamily functioning requires negotiating clear roles and rules, forming realistic expectations, strengthening the stepparenting-stepchild relationship, and navigating relationships with children’s other parent(s).
Smart Steps is a research-based program that recognizes the complexities and the interdependent nature of relationships within stepfamilies. This comprehensive and interactive educational program is for couples in stepfamilies and their children. Each class focuses on the unique issues that stepcouples and stepfamilies face and the knowledge and skills that build relationship and family strength.
College of Family and Consumer Sciences Extension Agents in various counties across Georgia are trained to provide Smart Step workshops - find a trained agent near you. If you are interested in more information, please contact your county College of Family and Consumer Sciences agent at 1-800-ASK-UGA1.
Related Links and Resources
Below are links to other websites with more resources you can access to support the development and maintenance of healthy couple and marital relationships.
Staff
Ted Futris
|
