Pennsylvania Family Coalition » Educational Services

Educational Services

The Pennsylvania Family Coalition is serving communities across the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania with innovative ways to strengthen our families. Call us for details.

Building Healthy Marriages

Marriage education, a relatively new approach to preventing marital distress and breakdown, is based on the premise that couples can learn how to build and maintain successful, stable marriages.

Couples can learn how to increase the behaviors that make a marriage successful and decrease those associated with marital distress and divorce. Mismanaged conflict predicts both marital distress and negative effects for children. The marriage education approach is based on years of research into the characteristics that distinguish marriages that succeed from those that fail.

The difference between couples that survive and thrive in marriage and those that do not lies primarily in how couples handle their inevitable differences. Behaviors and attitudes that predict success can be effectively and economically taught to couples, regardless of background, and at any stage of their relationship.

Along with the skills that teach couples how to communicate more effectively, manage conflict, and work together as a team, marriage education courses also teach the benefits of marriage for couples and their children and what to expect in the course of marriage. Some programs have been adapted for specific populations.

Program length ranges from several hours to semester-long courses. Most are 8 to 20 hours long and are taught over a weekend or through weekly classes. They are delivered in a variety of settings, including classrooms, community centers, childbirth clinics, houses of worship, courts, prisons, extension agencies, schools, and military bases.

Results

Numerous studies suggest that marital outcomes can be predicted with a high degree of accuracy based primarily on the quality of a coupleâ€™s communication and their ability to manage conflict. Longitudinal studies clearly demonstrate that couples can learn and use relationship skills.

Other Benefits

In addition to strengthening relationships, marriage education can benefit couples interested in marriage in other ways:

Marriage education highlights the benefits of strong and healthy marriages for both adults and children. These include being better providers; living longer; earning and saving more money; and being less reliant on government services, such as welfare, health care, and mental health care.
Marriage education provides a roadmap about what to expect in marriage, including challenges such as the birth of the first child, different philosophies on parenting, and negotiating work and family responsibilities.
Marriage education can help couples better understand principles about commitment, acceptance, forgiveness, and sacrifice that are known to be associated with healthy relationships.
Marriage education courses are also available online. See www.marriageducation.org.

For more information, please contact Shel Taylor at [email protected]

Watch couples describe what it was like to take a Marriage Education Class in their own words. If your spouse is resistant or unsure about taking a class, have them watch this short clip on YouTube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xg3s1uhFiGE

Produced by Ron McLain and the Fresno Healthy Marriage Coalition

Utilizing the law of attraction

by Jack Canfield
FREE success tips from Jack Canfield now at: www.FreeSuccessStrategies.com
Click here for more…

Positive Parenting Skills for Raising Cooperative, Confident, and Compassionate Children, lessons from John Gray

Psychologist John Gray cites a need to shift from “fear-based parenting” (a punitive and oppressive approach to child rearing) to “love-based parenting” (which accepts children’s desires and negative emotions while still setting reasonable limits). With child and teen violence increasing, rampant low self-esteem, substance abuse, teen pregnancy, and attention deficit disorder, he says, “the Western free world is experiencing a crisis in parenting. Almost all parents today are questioning both the old and the new ways of parenting. Nothing seems to be working.”
He suggests “Five Messages of Positive Parenting” that will facilitate such a shift:

It’s okay to be different.

It’s okay to make mistakes.

It’s okay to express negative emotions.

It’s okay to want more.

It’s okay to say no, but remember mom and dad are the bosses.

Although his parenting philosophy is not necessarily revolutionary (think “positive discipline”), Gray manages to keep this parenting primer contemporary by weaving in specific challenges of new-millennium families-such as our tendency to be consumer-driven and overscheduled. “When parents learn what their children really need, they are less motivated to create money to acquire things and more motivated to create time to enjoy their family,” Gray writes. “The greatest wealth for a parent today is time.” -Gail Hudson -This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
For customized programs, keynote speeches and program support please email: [email protected]

Discovering the Real Me

Discovering the Real Me (DRM) is a character Education curriculum for youth in grades K-12, parents, and college age adults. The Discovering the Real Me program is an age-appropriate, character-based, relationship, leadership and parent education offering specialized services, summer camps, trainers and special events speakers. The curriculum is unique in that is uses stories to teach key virtues, includes both student and teacher texts for all grades from one to twelve and focuses on three basic live goals:

To grow and become a person of mature character

To build healthy relationships and a loving family

To make a positive contribution to society

DRM Teachersâ€™ Training equip teachers and administrators to be effective character educators. We certify you to train your team in proven techniques. This training is ideal for teachers, administrators, youth group leaders and community builders who would like to learn strategies for effective, sustainable character education. Our professional development can enhance your effectiveness as a leader and bring your school or organization a new way to cope with behavior problems, student underachievement, and drop-out rates. We can even customize training for your unique needs.

DRM Character Education training improves the lives of youth and adults who teach it and communities that embrace it.

For a free consultation or for more information, please email: [email protected]

http://upf.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=373&Itemid=196

Relationship Intelligence (RQ) Training

This seminar focus on leadership education and youth development to young people who are preparing for marriage, that are pregnant , mothers and fathers . It promotes a new beginning through practice of relationship skills. RQ can be offered as a stand-alone program or as a supplement to the Cradle to Classroom programs. Small group format is conducive to relationship building. The use of healthy relationship and social skills training help further develop their character, maturity and vocational awareness.

The Power of Focus

We work to keep our students in school. PTOs visit studentsâ€™ homes who have 3 to 7 unexcused absences to educate their parents about the importance of their children attending school every day. This program seeks to inspire and teach students to stay focused. The program focuses on helping students make good decisions for their lives… Individuals have free will to pursue their course of action, however the personâ€™s right or wrong actions rebound to the doer in like kind. Good actions rewards and accrue merit. Wrong actions return corresponding consequences and incur penalties. This is an innovative program designed to help our students stay focused and coupe with the stress of everyday life.
The Relationship Intelligence curriculum uses an interactive approach including â€œself-inventoryâ€ exercises and student journal questions for personal reflection. It calls upon the power of stories by drawing on selections of past and present authors including E. B. White, Tolstoy, Oâ€™Henry, and Stephen Covey, contemporary song writers and heartrending confessions in letters to Ann Landersâ€¦ engaging programs to keep our youth engaged. For more information, please write: [email protected]

Free Teens Leadership Program

Free Teens Leadership Training empowers young people to value their lives and to live their values through its award-winning Relationship Intelligence education, which has been used in 38 states and many countries around the world. The Free Teens program is designed to empower and support the creation of a positive youth culture that honors self-reliance, respectful relations between the sexes, marriage and families. We work with the Free Teens USA organization to provide these services.

Stage One: Free Teens Leadership Training Presentations & Workbook Activities

Stage Two: After-school Free Teens Clubs

Stage Three: Parent Training in “Abstinence Works”

Stage Four: Free Teens Media Institute and CultureMachine Activities

For more information, please review the sites below and email: [email protected]

Free Teens 4 Stages Program Summary
Free Teens USA - Free Teens Youth.com
Free Teens USA
CULTUREMACHINE.COM
Culture Shock
www.myspace.com/freeteensusa
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/georgia/

School Assemblies / School and After-schools programs / Summer Camps / Clubs

Growing Up Green!

This program is designed for busy parents who are searching for ways to improve the overall health of their families. We offer programs for parents organizations, faith based and community organizations on how to create an environmentally safe home, foster a drug free environment for children and teensâ€¦ starting at home! This life transforming program help deal with self esteem, depression and stress related issues we face daily. PFC offers programs for parents, PTA groups and community organizations.

Many scientists and doctors are discovering that there is a connection between our increased use of household chemicals and the increased incidence of chronic illnesses in children like cancer, asthma, ADD, birth defects, and a host of other problems. Author and speaker Debra Lynn Dadd discusses the scientific evidence linking chemical-laden household products to these diseases in children.

To schedule a program and for a free consultation please email: [email protected]

Sample Programs:
Remove Toxins from your Home, our Children & Environment!
Let me Help Make your Home Green

Important websites:

April 13th, 2008