Forest Institute Gets Grant / Oklahoma Marriage Initiative / Is this stuff working? - 1/07

[Smartmarriages]

- FOREST INSTITUTE GETS $5.2M GRANT TO FOSTER HEALTHY MARRIAGES
- OKLAHOMA MARRIAGE INITIATIVE: "BECOMING A HOUSEHOLD NAME"
- OKLAHOMA INITIATIVE.....IS IT WORKING?

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- FOREST INSTITUTE GETS $5.2M GRANT TO FOSTER HEALTHY MARRIAGES
The Springfield Business Journal, Missouri
1/29/2007
Springfield Business Journal Staff

((Interesting that this is in the Business Journal.  Marriage is good for
the bottom line. - diane))

Forest Institute of Professional Psychology, 2885 W. Battlefield Road, has
received a $5.2 million grant to decrease divorce rates and strengthen
families.

The institute is one of 14 recipients chosen from 1,600 grant applications
received by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services¹ Office of
Family Assistance.

Education and resources

The five-year grant is designed to provide education and resources to
increase marital satisfaction and decrease divorce and out-of-wedlock birth
rates in 29 southwest Missouri counties served by the institute.

Jennifer Baker, Psy.D, and director of Forest¹s marriage and family therapy
program, said institute officials are excited about the grant because strong
marriages are the foundation of strong communities.

³Research shows married men and women live longer than single men and women,
(and) married people recover faster from injuries and illnesses,² Baker said
in a news release.

³Male employees in stable relationships are more productive than their
single counterparts, and children who are raised in healthy marriages are
better adjusted and make better decisions about their own relationships,²
she added.

The 2004­05 Springfield Public Schools Annual Report shows that nearly 36
percent of all students in the district live in a single-parent household.
The grant funds are part of the Healthy Marriage Initiative, which works to
increase the percentage of children raised by two parents in a healthy
marriage.

The initiative also aims at reducing domestic violence and increasing public
awareness of the value of healthy marriages.

Partnership effort

Two major grant partners are Pregnancy Care Center and Ozarks Marriage
Matters. Pregnancy Care Center will focus its efforts with the funds on
working with high school students in nine school districts, and with unwed
expectant parents in the region.

Ozarks Marriage matters will provide educational services to target referral
groups and couples at risk for divorce. There are more than 20 local
regional partners in the grant, including members of the faith community,
social service agencies and Head Start.

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- OKLAHOMA MARRIAGE INITIATIVE: "BECOMING A HOUSEHOLD NAME"

The Oklahoma Marriage Initiative will update us at the Denver Conference
with a progress report on their 10 year plan to reduce divorce in Oklahoma
at their annual workshop that shares their strategic plan, and based on
years of experience, guides other initiatives around potential potholes. -
diane 
 
The Countywide News & Sun (Tecumseh Oklahoma)
January, 26, 2008 

Marriage Tour Will Be Here On Saturday

The Oklahoma Marriage Initiative (OMI), the longest running statewide
marriage initiative in the country, is poised to become a household name in
2007.

Twenty-three communities across the state are part of the OMI's 2007 ³All
About Us² Tour, including a stop in Shawnee Saturday at Gordon Cooper
Technology Center.

Married couples, engaged couples, and those thinking about marriage that
live in the Shawnee area and surrounding communities are invited to take
part in the exciting ³All About Us² day.

The tour concept was developed as a way to bring marriage education to the
masses. All OMI workshops are free therefore allowing all couples the
opportunity to improve their marriages and relationships. The overall goal
is to lower the divorce rate and create happy, healthy families in Oklahoma.

Expert, dynamic workshop leaders will teach couples the Prevention and
Relationship Enhancement Program (PREP), a research-based marriage education
curriculum. Workshop participants will learn how to improve communication,
manage conflict effectively, and keep the love alive.

The ³All About Us² workshops are considered pre-marital education and
engaged couples who attend and complete the workshop are eligible for a
discount on their marriage license and will pay only $5 for an Oklahoma
marriage license.

To register for the Shawnee workshop or to learn about other ³All About Us²
workshops, visit <http://www.okmarriage.org/>www.okmarriage.org or call
Lauren at (877) 435-8033.

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- OKLAHOMA INITIATIVE.....IS IT WORKING?

> Diane,
> 
> I was just reviewing the National Vital Statistics Report, and I'm dismayed.
> Oklahoma, home of the longest-running statewide marriage initiatives that is
> being used by HHS as a case-study of marriage education, is STILL home to the
> highest divorce rate in the nation.  What's happening?!
> 
> The provisional data in 2005 says that the number of marriages was 25,755, and
> the number of divorces was 19,166, which calculates to a ratio of about 78
> divorces per 100 marriages.  (California, Georgia, Hawaii, and Louisiana
> didn't report data on divorces, and Minnesota hadn't submitted its final data
> as of July 2006 when the report came out.)  And it's not as though the number
> of marriages in Oklahoma has dropped, either - the numbers went up from 22,812
> in 2004 to 25,755 in 2005.  We have almost 3,000 more divorces in 2005 than in
> 2004.
> 
> The data set is on the CDC website at
> http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr54/nvsr54_20.pdf Table 3.
> 
> I hope we learn lessons from this that can help to reduce divorce rates in the
> future.  If Oklahoma really wants to follow through and cut the divorce rate
> by one-third, then they need to have a really good 3 years before 2010!!!  And
> it's going to take more than just a single state-funded program!
> 
> My guess, by the way, is that a one-size-fits-all approach like PREP doesn't
> help couples stay together, although it does give them important communication
> and conflict-resolution skills.
> 
> Ben Vos
> Consultant
> Family Dynamics
> Nashville, TN

Hi Ben, 
THIS is definitely good grist for our particular mill and something we will
discuss in Denver.  I don't know how much weight we can give this
"provisional" data. At a very quick look it appears that about ten states,
including Oklahoma, report increases in divorce numbers. These are hard
numbers though and not the state "rate". I think, as you mention, that you
have to give Oklahoma credit that while they have almost 200 more divorces
in 2005, they also have 3,000 more marriages. And, it looks like while
Tennessee, your home state, shows a 423 reduction in divorces it also shows
an almost 6,000 reduction in marriage.  The prize, however, if this chart
holds any weight at all, goes to Missouri. If I'm reading it right, they
report a 6,000 increase in the number of marriages and a 500 decrease in the
number of divorces. Those are numbers that are both going in the right
direction. I don't know what to make of this chart and this provisional
data, but do know we have to watch both divorce AND marriage numbers.

However, your point is well taken. The Oklahoma Marriage Initiative folks
have been at this for a while and have put millions into it.  They will
present an update of their 10-year marriage initiative plan and you can ask
them about this.  And, this is precisely WHY the feds HHS/ACF are funding
over $100 million a year in DEMONSTRATION PROJECTS.  The Oklahoma plan is
just one model - one experiment.  Oklahoma decided on a saturation model -
to put one program (the PREP program) in place state-wide at all levels from
high school marriage education to out-of-wedlock couples to those just
needing marriage enrichment. Other "experiments" in Missouri, California,
Florida, Texas, Ohio, Colorado, etc are trying different plans - using more
than one marriage education program to see what effect they'll get.  We all
also must remember that we're not going to turn this huge ship around
quickly - it may take a generation or two to reverse the divorce/marriage
stats.  AND, I'm convinced that as nice as the boost from the TANF dollars
may be, the work is going to be done - as it began - at the grass roots
level.  - diane  


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