tips for long relationships

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Local expert offers tips for long relationships

Special to The Mercury "Healthy and happy marriages have so much impact on people's lives," licensed psychologist Dr. Jeffrey Walters said. As associate director of Psychology & Counseling Associates in Pottstown, Collegeville and Montgomeryville, he's helped couples for more than a decade and also conducts marriage education workshops. "Working with couples and helping them gain these skills can be exciting."

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Feature | ACCORD celebrates love and marriage

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ACCORD, the Catholic marriage care service, aims to promote a deeper understanding of Christian marriage. ACCORD offers couples the means to nourish marriage and family relationships. Click here for marriage prayer, audio reflections on love and a list of creative gift ideas for couples.

To coincide with Saint Valentine’s day 2011, ACCORD has announced a 6% increase in the number of couples booking their marriage preparation courses online for the first six weeks of the year. ACCORD has a new Facebook page to promote the Sacrament of Marriage. It is aimed at those preparing for marriage and also at married couples.  See below the ACCORD list of creative ideas for couples to express their love to one other.

Two reflections on Love from ACCORD

Take a moment to listen to these two short audio reflections on love and marriage which have been narrated by Stephen Cummins, Director of Marriage Education for ACCORD.

What is love?

The Key to Love

Gift ideas that don't cost the earth!

Saint Valentine’s Day ideas for gifts that don’t have to cost the earth!  As we approach Valentine’s Day and are surrounded by ‘gift ‘ideas and special offers, is it possible to have a meaningful Valentine’s Day without the big spend?  Why not share the following gifts:

Compliment each other

We can offer two types of compliment those that address a person’s outer appearance and those that address their inner character. We may be more used to saying :  “your hair looks great” than  “you’re an incredibly kind person” but both of these compliments cost you nothing.

Show you care

Find something that is important in your spouse’s schedule on Valentine’s Day (and other days too) a particular meeting, an important project, a doctor’s appointment and call, text, e-mail and ask how it went. This shows you care and creates an immediate loving bond with him/her.

Talk forward

Your spouse needs to know that they are special all the time and not just on Valentine’s Day, but why not use the occasion to make a thoughtful plan for the future. On Valentine’s Day, say “Let’s go to ... (ie a special location/occasion that your spouse enjoys, examples:) movies, shopping, visiting friends.”

Make an offer

Why not volunteer to do something for your spouse before he or she asks you to do it? Offer to pick something up at the shops, prepare dinner, and offer to put the children to bed (if you don’t usually!).  This says to your spouse that I care about you and I am putting you first.

Be memorable

Do and say memorable things this Valentine’s Day and all year round. Instead of dining out, have a candlelit dinner at home. Share the music your spouse enjoys. If you want to spend money buy a lasting plant instead of flowers. Contact them during the day to give a heartfelt comment like “I love you because ...”

All of the above will spark love and romance - the cost is minimal - but the gift of words is priceless.

A prayer for marriage from ACCORD

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ACCORD, the Catholic Marriage Care Service, is an agency of the Irish Catholic Bishops’ Conference.  ACCORD has 60 locations in the 26 Dioceses of Ireland.  All volunteers undergo professional counselling training and/or facilitation training in advance of becoming members of ACCORD.  Every year ACCORD volunteers receive continuous professional developmental training and are in supervision.  For more information see www.accord.ie.

www.gettingmarried.ie, a 'one stop shop' for information on preparing  for marriage, provides a wedding booklet facility which allows couples to create their marriage booklet online, a task which many find challenging. There is also a frequently asked questions section and of particular interest are the essential steps in the marriage preparation journey which is available on the website in a timeline format.


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Guest Blog (Scott Stanley): A promising approach for strengthening disadvantaged families | OK Policy Blog

Guest Blog (Scott Stanley): A promising approach for strengthening disadvantaged families

Scott Stanley is a research professor at the University of Denver, co-Chair of Research Advisory Group for the Family Expectations Program, and co-developer of the Prevention and Relationship Enhancement Program (PREP) which forms part of the basis of the Becoming Parents Program that is one component of the services provided in Family Expectations.

Something incredible is happening in Oklahoma!  It’s the innovative Family Expectations (FE) program in Oklahoma City. A large, rigorous federal study has now demonstrated that services to strengthen families successfully improved the stability and quality of unmarried parents’ relationships around the time of the birth of a child.  Run by Public Strategies —and funded by the Oklahoma Department of Human Services and the Administration for Children and Families —Family Expectations stands to make a major difference in the lives of children who gain an increased chance of being raised in a healthy, stable home.

Why does this matter? While many children raised by single parents or step-parents thrive, decades of research show consistent advantages for children raised by both of their parents within a low-conflict household.  Based on much of this research, Family Expectations engages financially vulnerable couples, both unmarried and married, in a wide range of services, including educational classes where they learn skills and principles to nurture and protect their relationship and parenting information about infant care and development. They also work one-on-one with family support coordinators who help these new parents to apply what they learn and to access other community services.

Family Expectations is actually part of two large, multi-site, federally funded studies commissioned by the Administration for Children and Families.  The Building Strong Families (BSF) study, led by Mathematica Policy Research, is examining the impacts of such programs on low income, unmarried couples, while another study is examining the impacts on low income, married couples.  In each study, half of the couples were randomly assigned to receive services similar to Family Expectations (intervention group) and half received only the services they might otherwise find in the community (control group).

The federal government recently released the results on outcomes at 15 months for the BSF study.  While the national results across sites were disappointing, the findings were so different in Oklahoma that the evaluators drew special attention to the results for Family Expectations (report available here). To start with, compared to most other sites, Family Expectations was able to get more couples through a much greater portion of the intended services.  Likely due in part to the newness of this program model, in some other sites, as few as 40 percent of the intervention group couples ever attended a single educational class together. While many other sites struggled to get and keep couples involved, FE excelled at doing so.  And when it came to making a difference in the lives of couples, those randomly assigned to FE showed a consistent pattern of positive outcomes, including a greater likelihood of remaining together and positive benefits for relationship happiness, emotional support, sexual fidelity, the ability to handle conflict effectively, co-parenting, and father involvement —including a greater proportion of fathers both living with their children and contributing to the cost of providing for their children.  Also of note, the positive impacts were strongest among participating African American couples.

In this type of policy research, it is difficult to demonstrate impacts in community-based, real-world settings. That makes these findings from Oklahoma’s Family Expectations particularly noteworthy. Better still, I believe that the kind of results Oklahoma demonstrated can be achieved elsewhere.  I come to this opinion based on my 25 years of research in this area as well as discussions with the evaluators and with the program’s nationally respected research advisory group. Throughout, FE used procedures that are detailed, methodical, and inventive. That means the procedures could be adopted and used elsewhere.  Family Expectations created a warm environment for the couples that is infused with a commitment to “customer service,” backed by active and strong management, all while relying on existing research that highlights proven strategies for success.

Those interested in improving the lives of the nation’s most vulnerable, young families, can find great encouragement from the impressive set of findings in Oklahoma, especially since success was demonstrated with families that have many other disadvantages working against them as they strive to reach their aspirations in family life. And the citizens of Oklahoma can be proud that their state is leading the nation, once again, as it helps others see they can truly make a difference in the lives of low-income children.

The opinions stated above are not necessarily those of OK Policy, its staff, or its board. This blog is a venue to help promote the discussion of ideas from various points of view and we invite your comments and contributions. To see our guidelines for blog submissions, click here.

4 Responses to 'Guest Blog (Scott Stanley): A promising approach for strengthening disadvantaged families'

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  1. [...] A promising approach for strengthening disadvantaged families [...]

  2. Thanks for this post about this program helping children & families…it is refreshing to see an initiative geared towards family preservation versus money going towards marketing to make more babies available for the adoption industry.

  4. [...] also: Guest Blog (Scott Stanley): A promising approach for strengthening disadvantaged families on the OK Policy [...]

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