Coffin Corner

• Power of Education Campaign
• Grant Investments
• Successful Funding Strategy
• Wanted: Researchers
• Teen Sex and School Performance
• Youth Relationship News
• Sexting; An Offense or Just Offensive?
• Save the date

Dear friends,

September – it’s a new year for schools and youth programs alike. We at The Dibble Institute have been getting ready for September with more relevant resources to help you teach young people healthy relationship skills. Check them out in our new catalog or access our new products online to see what we have developed and found!

We also have some new free resources! We developed a very engaging bingo game to teach why marriage matters. And, feel free to download the new movie guide to UP! with discussion questions related to relationships. Of course, feel free to use our free sample lessons to get a taste of the many Dibble materials.

Over the summer, we also wrote a quick start guide for the Relationality game. We love the game and find it imparts key concepts in a fun and engaging way but starting the game can be slow. Download the streamlined rules of the game here.

Late in May we announced that Char Kamper had completely revised her best-seller, Connections: Dating and Emotions. Its 15 engaging, ready-to-teach lessons (including posters and PowerPoints) show teens how relationships develop, effective ways to communicate, awareness of destructive patterns, managing feelings, and other essential skills. Using an overall wellness approach, the course emphasizes self-awareness, personal growth, self-regulation of emotions, and interpersonal success. Take a peek!

Stay tuned! In next few months we will introduce several new programs each with a unique approach to relationship education. We know you will like them!

With all warm wishes,

Kay Reed
Executive Director

Power of Education Campaign 2010

If you love our work, then tell the world! You have an exciting opportunity to help The Dibble Institute make even more of a difference. GreatNonprofits—a site like Amazon reviews or TripAdvisor—is conducting a campaign to identify the top-rated education nonprofits in the country.

Won't you help us participate in the campaign by posting a review of your experience with us? All reviews will be visible to potential donors and volunteers. It's easy and only takes 3 minutes! Go to: www.greatnonprofits.org/reviews/dibble-institute-for-marriage-education
Be sure to choose "Education" from the drop down menu of campaigns in the review template!
With your help, we can gain greater visibility and support for our work.

Grant Investments

We have received several calls in the last few weeks from teachers, abstinence, youth agencies, and marriage coalitions wanting to purchase teaching tools from their year-end funds.

What a great idea! You can stock up on resources to extend your program into the next fiscal year. Let us know how we can help!!

Successful Teacher Finds Funding Strategy

Thanks to Tricia Seibert from Troy Buchanan High School in Missouri for sharing her successful funding strategy. Instead of using her department’s budget for Dibble supplemental materials, she asked her principal to order them through the school’s textbook budget.

Everyone wins with this approach!

Tricia got the teaching tools she needed for her students and her school saved money because she was meeting the curricular framework without purchasing more expensive textbooks.

Thank you, Tricia!

Wanted: Researchers

Are you a graduate student in search of a meaningful thesis or dissertation? Or, faculty seeking to advance the field of family life education or positive youth development? We would like to talk with you about partnering on evaluations of our research based programs!

Please email Executive Director, Kay Reed, to begin the conversation.

Teen Sex and School performance

A study was published last month with results from an evaluation that tracked students in healthier romantic relationships and those in hook-up relationships and compared their academic performance. You can read about it below.

Teen sex doesn't cause bad grades, but beware 'hook ups'
Serious relationships don't affect school performance, new study finds
By ALICIA CHANG - Associated Press, updated 8/15/2010

Editor’s note: The most important take away from this article for me, is that we can’t take for granted that young people know how to develop healthy relationships without being taught the skills. And, that instruction should include how to really get to know someone, how relationships grow and develop over time, and the emotional and social (and not just the biological) aspects of sex.

Youth Relationship Education News

Relationship coach helps couples thrive
Green Bay Press Gazette
"Relationship education, not just sex education, should be taught in schools," she said. "Relationship skills are needed for anyone that has human contact

Sexting; An Offense or Just Offensive?

Parents have heard a thousand times that sex is all over the media. And now it's online, too, as teens are sexting; sending nude or suggestive photos by cellphone -- which in some states is now a criminal offense. Is the sheer volume of sexual images in the media and elsewhere harming our children? Or is it something else?
(From Connect with Kids – September 3, 2010)

Save the dates –

September 18, 2010
Connections Introduction with Author Char Kamper
Sacramento Healthy Marriage Project
Times (pick one):  10:00 am - 12:00 pm
                             2:00 pm - 4:00 pm
Click here for additional information and to reserve your place!

September 30, 2010
TeenNow California Conference
Sacramento, CA
Workshop: What's Healthy Relationships Got to Do With it?  A New Approach to Pregnancy Prevention
Presenter: Joyce Huff, Director of Outreach