INVITATION: Conference call this Fri--re new national organization - 4/13/10

Tue Apr 13 19:35:54 EDT 2010

Diane,
We're excited to take this significant step in launching a new professional
trade association and thank you for being willing to post it to the Smart
Marriages list.  
Dennis Stoica
______________

Vital Conference Call Announcement for National Organization on 4-16-10.

The fields of Marriage, Fatherhood and Relationship Education have been
established through decades of research and program development and through
the work of hundreds of grass-roots organizations and thousands of
practitioners which now constitute a robust national infrastructure. This
tremendous effort throughout America warrants the establishment of a
Professional Trade Association that will foster and expand our work, bring
about a powerful alliance of people and organizations, bolster our
collective impact on society and further our ability to affect the future of
American families. 

The creation of a Professional Trade Association is critical to the future
of all who have taken part in laying the groundwork, for at least two
important reasons: 

1.      The Administration for Children and Families (ACF) has released its
2011 TANF budget which contains plans to eliminate funding for the current
Healthy Marriage Demonstration Grants (HMDG) and Promoting Responsible
Fatherhood (PRF) grants and replace these with a new Fatherhood, Marriage
and Families Innovative Fund (FMFIF).  Careful reading of this budget
proposal makes it perfectly clear that if passed as currently written,
federal funding for Relationship Education in Healthy Marriage and/or
Fatherhood work would be significantly cut, if not nearly eliminated!

2.      We have suffered tremendously by not having a united voice that
reaches every family unit, encourages communities to raise their
consciousness about the power and importance of Marriage, Fatherhood and
Relationship Education, and one that educates every opinion leader and
decision maker throughout our land concerning the availability and
cost-effectiveness of this proven approach that can strengthen marriages,
families and society. 

These two points alone make it abundantly clear to all of us signed below
that we should move quickly to create a professional trade association. 
Although we haven¹t yet decided upon a name for the organization, two of the
leading contenders are National Association of Relationship Educators (NARE)
and National Marriage, Fatherhood and Family Association (NMFFA).  A
membership dues structure, along with many other decisions will be worked
out by the organization over the months ahead.  For those of you working on
HMDG and/or PRF Continuation Applications, keep in mind that dues in
professional trade associations are an allowable budget item.  Dues for
individuals and other organizations will be affordable as we want this
organization to be truly inclusive.

We want to emphasize that this non-partisan organization is open to all
people and organizations of all kinds who are interested in promoting the
expansion of Marriage, Fatherhood and Relationship Education throughout
society.  Our only issue is: how can we increase support for, access to, and
participation in these valuable research-based programs for ALL Americans,
in age and stage-appropriate ways, throughout their life cycles.
What we want to accomplish with this communication is to INVITE EVERYONE
interested in this endeavor to join a national teleconference this Friday,
April 16, at 1:00 Eastern time.  

We¹re very excited about the ramifications of all of this and think that we
have a breakthrough notion that will cause us to look back wistfully some
day and say:   "Remember those really early days in our work before we had
the professional association working to create national support for all of
this?" 

We invite you to join us in turning this corner now!

TELECONFERENCE DETAILS:

FRIDAY, April 16, 1-2 p.m. (Eastern time)
Teleconference number:  712-432-1001  
Access code:  42-779-5965# 

Signed:

Richard Albertson, Founding President of Live the Life (Florida)            

Jennifer Baker, President of Ozarks Marriage Matters (Missouri)       

 Julie Baumgardner, President of First Things First (Tennessee)            

Susan Dutton Freund, President/E.D. of ThinkMarriage.org (Wisconsin)    

 Rob Harrison, Founder/President of 4EverMarriages (Pennsylvania) 

Hyepin C. Im, President of Korean Churches for Community Development
(California)     

 Alicia E. La Hoz, Psy.D., Director of Family Bridges Program
(Illinois)                                                                  

Joneen Mackenzie, President/Founder of WAIT Training (Colorado) 

Kay Reed, Executive Director of the Dibble Institute (Youth Programs)      

Maggie Russell, Chair of Texas Coalition for Healthy Families
(Texas)                                                                 

Dennis Stoica, President of California Healthy Marriages Coalition
(California)                                                              

MP Wylie, President of Relationship Research Foundation (Fatherhood
Grantee)                   

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