Stanley on Heritage Review/Marriage Week/Fatherhood tape -11/02

[Smartmarriages ®]

subject: Stanley on Heritage Review/Marriage Week/Fatherhood tape -11/02

from: Smart Marriages®

Diane, 
I am not clear on when and where the Stepping Together: Smart Steps training
will be offered.  
HM in Atlanta

It will be offered on Monday, June 30 in Reno - it is one of 30 pre and post
conference training institutes at the Smart Marriages conference. For a full
list of institutes see:
http://www.smartmarriages.com/institutes.html
##############

€ STANLEY COMMENTS ON HERITAGE REVIEW:

€ OPRAH FATHERHOOD SHOW:

€ NATIONAL MARRIAGE WEEK:
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€ STANLEY COMMENTS ON HERITAGE REVIEW:

I want to share with you - and with the list if you chose to send this out -
a few thoughts related to the Heritage report "The Overwhelming Evidence
that Marriage Education Works"
(http://lists.his.com/smartmarriages/msg02118.html).  You wrote yesterday:

> And, at least three people said I should send out again the "more balanced"
> article by Scott Stanley "Making a Case for Premarital Education" that was
> published in Family Relations in 2001  at:
> http://www.prepinc.com/store2/Articles.asp   - diane
> 
I think the suggestion to read my paper from last year as a complement or
companion piece to the Heritage review is a good one.  My paper does NOT
provide a review of the broad literature tackled by the Heritage paper.
Rather, my piece provides 1) a full set of arguments for the value of
premarital education, and 2) a summary of the kinds of issues and questions
that can affect outcome research and its interpretation.  On both scores,
the relevant arguments and issues apply well to the broader fields of
marriage education and marital therapy, even though I focus my points on
premarital prevention.

Although I use the PREP program outcome studies as my examples, the caveats
of this research I discuss apply generally to the research in this broad
area.

Also, as someone who has worked in the field of outcome research on marriage
education (with Howard Markman) since 1977, I'd like to make a personal
observation.  I find the Heritage report interesting precisely for the
reminder of just how many studies have been conducted in this area over the
past few decades. I found the reminder very helpful.

While most researchers have difficulty ever saying there is "overwhelming
evidence" of anything, the Heritage report certainly reminds us that there
are a great many studies that show positive effects with a wide range of
programs and with a wide variety of human struggles. People might argue the
point about "overwhelming evidence" based on which questions they are asking
or are most concerned about. Yet, many studies do exist showing positive
results--and a significant number of them have strong methods. As has been
mentioned in many places, the chief problem in the literature is that so
many studies are short-term. Yet, even on this point, there are a number of
sound studies that are long-term, in both the marriage education and marital
therapy fields.  I say a few things in my paper about why the longer term
studies are so hard to conduct.

To close, this literature containing many studies does exist. I think it
makes untenable the argument that there is "no evidence" suggesting marriage
and relationship education (and/or therapy) works.  This should be
encouraging to our field, even when taking into account the questions that
research has yet to answer and that remain a focus of empirical evaluation.

Scott Stanley 
University of Denver

#####################
€ NATIONAL MARRIAGE WEEK:

I hope you'll take time to check out the UK Marriage Week website. You'll
note that in the UK they convene their national marriage education
conference during Marriage Week, Feb 7 - 14. Perhaps we should think about
moving ours from June/July months to Feb.  Looks like they're conference is
growing - starting to sound more and more like ours!  Now we can hope a
marriage education conference will develop in every country.  And, here in
the US, wish we could get one going in every state - and every county and
every city?  For the info on marriage week that I sent to the list last
month see: http://archives.his.com/smartmarriages/msg02098.html
and for the info on what Utah is doing, see:
http://archives.his.com/smartmarriages/msg02099.html

But for the motherlode, see:

Hi Dianne, 
The National Marriage Week UK web site is fully updated now, with a downlaod
pdf newsletter and pdf leaders guides. We are getting requests from all over
the globe.  

Best wishes 
Richard Kane 
www.nmw.org.uk
###################
€ OPRAH FATHERHOOD SHOW:
Diane, 

I just ordered the videotape of the Oprah Show you recommended that featured
Fatherhood and Roland Warren.  It is the 10/30/02 show, available at
Oprah.com and it costs $29.95.

Rev. Ronald K. M. Williams, M. Div., J. D.
Family Advocate and Mediator


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7th annual Smart Marriages conference/RENO, Nevada
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