Assistance to Refugee Couples (ARC)
Boat People SOS, Inc.
Office of Refugee Resettlement Vietnamese view family matters as private and do not discuss personal health, family violence, or marital distress even with parents, children or siblings, let alone professionals. BPSOS has adapted the PREP curriculum to Vietnamese culture, and translated it. Assistance to Refugee Couples (ARC) provides marriage enrichment and family wellness services in hopes that Vietnamese couples will become equipped and receive assistance to better manage their marriages and families in healthy ways. To learn more about our program, please visit:machsongmedia.com.

Caring for Marriage
Caring for Marriage
Box 277, 600 Tomlinson Rd
Bryn Athyn, PA 19009-0277
215-947-3564
Caring for Marriage is located near Philadelphia and is a faith based organization. Lori and her husband John have nine children and have been leading marriage events since before they knew they were not qualified. For resources, schedules, registration, and inspiration, visit caringformarriage.org.

Center of Relationship Enhancement (CORE)
70 West Oakland Street
Suite 313
Doylestown, PA 18901
215-348-2424
At CORE, we believe that:

· Developing secure, trusting and satisfying relationships will improve your life.

· You can learn the skills you need to develop and sustain these important relationships.

· You can learn to better appreciate those who are already in your life.

· You can look forward to creating new relationships that will enhance your life.

Children’s Aid Society in Clearfield County
1008 South Second Street
Clearfield, PA 16830

The mission of the Healthy Marriage Program is to provide relationship education and enrichment activities for married couples. Through these efforts, Children’s Aid Society (CAS) will build “Healthy Marriages, Strong Families, and Thriving Communities.” CAS is using Within Our Reach created by Preventative Relationship Enhancement Program (PREP).

Classes are offered six times per year in a variety of formats to meet the needs of busy families. We offer classes on week-day evenings, on Saturday’s and in a weekend retreat format. The evening and Saturday classes offer a meal, free child care and a travel stipend. The weekend retreats offer free overnight accommodation and meals.

In addition, the Healthy Marriage Program offers a year of booster activities to couples who successfully complete the Within Our Reach class. Booster activities are offered for a full year after completion of the class. Booster activities include: date nights, monthly couples support group, a couple’s massage class taught by a certified massage therapist, a money management class, and the Dale Carnegie Program for Married Couples.

Community Services for Children, Inc.
1520 Hanover Avenue
Allentown, PA 18109
Use(s) of ACF Program Grant Funds: Funds for this grant will provide low-income married couples with marriage enhancement and marriage skills training programs. Community Services for Children plans to serve 150 couples in its first year. Some of the objectives of the program are to strengthen healthy relationships between married couples whose children are enrolled in the Head Start Program and to enhance the organization’s Healthy Relationships and Marriage Education Course. The main activity will be 15 8-week marriage skills and enhancement sessions. In addition, the program will provide couple’s with relationship resources and an environment in which couples can talk through problems that may have arose during the week with a facilitator. Expected outcomes include at least 80% of couples having improved their communication skills and their decision-making skills.

The Devotion Program
The Salvation Army, a New York Corporation
Eastern Pennsylvania and Delaware
701 North Broad Street
Philadelphia, PA 19123
Use(s) of ACF Program Grant Funds: The Salvation Army, a New York Corporation plans to provide Marriage education, marriage skills, and relationship skills programs that may include parenting skills, financial management, conflict resolution, and job and career advancement for non-married pregnant women and non-married expectant fathers. They will use a pilot program as a model to essentially reach out to 100 couples per year by implement the Devotion Program. In addition, the program will use the “Love’s Cradle” curriculum to enhance participants’ relationship skills.

Family Formation and Development
Lehigh Valley Healthy Marriage Coalition (LHMC), Community Services for Children (CSC), Allentown, PA
Office of Child Support Enforcement – SIP

Healthy Marriage Education Project
OIC of America
1415 North Broad Street
Philadelphia, PA 19122-3323
OIC plans to provide education in high schools on the value of marriage relationship skills and budgeting, and to provide marriage education, marriage skills, and relationship skills programs for non-married pregnant women and non-married expectant fathers. They expect to serve 1500 high school youth and 50 expectant women and unmarried fathers using the “Keys to a Healthy Marriage” and “PREP Within My Reach”and “Within our Reach” curriculums. The program includes 50 hours of instruction and support services over 12 weeks.

Marriages of Hope Project
Nueva Esperanza, Inc.
4261 N. 5th St.
Philadelphia, PA 19140
Use(s) of ACF Program Grant Funds: The Marriages of Hope Program intends to provide marriage enhancement and marriage skills training programs to low-income married couples. The goal of the Marriages of Hope program is for the couples who are being served to sustain and improve their marriages in spite of challenges. Objectives of the program include providing culturally relevant marriage enhancement training and training congregational couples to serve as marriage mentors. Activities include implementation of the marriage curriculum, marriage workshops, a marriage enrichment retreat and a marriage mentoring program.

Relationship Education at Council for Relationships
Council For Relationships
4025 Chestnut Street
Philadelphia, PA 19104
(215) 382-6680
Council for Relationships, a preeminent non-profit counseling, education and research center, was founded in 1932 as Marriage Council of Philadelphia, and remains the oldest relationship counseling and training center in the country. We provide services for individuals, couples, children and families at fourteen locations throughout the Delaware Valley.

Rita DeMaria: Philadelphia
921A Bethlehem Pike, Suite 205
Spring House, PA 19477
(215) 628-2450
Established by Rita DeMaria, Ph.D., Marriage Doctor is dedicated to helping you strengthen and revitalize your relationship and keep it healthy and pleasurable, regardless of your age or stage of life.

Skillful Couples Vibrant Marriages

2034 Worcester Drive, Pittsburgh, PA 15243
412-257-0520

To provide services that transform families into ones which are:

· Spiritually alive: each person has a growing, personal relationship with Jesus Christ that impacts every aspect of their lives.

· Relationally strong: parents and children experience empowering and satisfying relationships where each person and relationship is accepted and valued as a gift from God.

· Emotionally healthy: Each person sees themselves and their unique journey as God sees them, resulting in the experience of abiding peace.

· Developmentally successful: The marriage, family experience and each child successfully accomplishes stage/age appropriate, developmental tasks that produce a growing marriage and mature adults who can reproduce these goals in their own families.

TWOGether Pittsburgh

Family Guidance, Inc.
307 Duff Road
Sewickley, PA 15143-9554
Use(s) of ACF Program Grant Funds: The program grant funds will be used to create healthier, more viable marriages by using the PREPARE/ENRICH, PREP, and PAIRS curricula. Anticipated results include serving 1000 to 1500 couples and individuals in pre-marital programs, 1500 to 2000 individuals in marriage enrichment, 200 couples in marriage mentoring, 250 couples in divorce reduction programs, and 500 to 600 high-school aged students.

(partial list)

NEWS, RESEARCH, TRENDS and ARTICLES

DADS MATTER

Be a more confident, involved, and loving father in just six sessions! Call Dads Matter at 724-437-2590 and register for free. Get up to $100 in Wal-Mart or Sheetz gift cards. Also, visit www.facebook.com/dadsmatter for more info about Dads Matter. BACKGROUND INFO: Dads Matter is a program of the Private Industry Council of Westmoreland/Fayette, Inc. (PIC) Dads Matter offers fatherhood classes (called Dad 2 Dad) in Fayette and Westmoreland Counties.

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TWOGETHER PITTSBURGH

Marriage Sustainers is the component of the TWOgether Pittsburgh initiative specifically designed to assist those couples who may be experiencing the normal stresses of marriage, but are having difficulty working through the stress. This module exists to provide greater opportunities for couples to learn and practice the skills that will increase the likelihood of a more happy and more healthy marital relationship.

http://www.twogetherpgh.org/marriageMentoring.asp

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By ROSS DOUTHAT, New York Times, published: March 2011

Social conservatives can seem like the perennial pessimists of American politics, more comfortable with resignation than with hope, perpetually touting evidence of family breakdown, social disintegration and civilizational decline.

An extremely important New York Times OPED that should be required reading for anyone who cares about the well-being of our country’s families. R. Panzer

read more: www.nytimes.com/2011/03/07/opinion/07douthat.html?_r=1

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STUDY FINDS RIDGE PROJECT PROGRAMS HAVE SIGNIFICANT RESULTS

A recent independent study of The RIDGE Project’s Keeping FAITH (Families and Inmates Together in Harmony) program found that the program has substantially improved the family relationships of its participants, and that doing so has resulted in significantly lower recidivism rates than the state and national average. The study based its findings on nearly four years of pre and post surveys from The RIDGE’s clients, and on data from the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction. For more information, or to view the full report online, visit The RIDGE Project’s website :www.theridgeproject.com. Listen to free podcasts on the website and learn how to bring the Keeping Faith program to your region and help these families and help reduce crime and recidivism.

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RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN FAMILY STRUCTURE AND SEXUAL ACTIVITY

This paper provides a systematic review of the research literature examining the relationship between family structure and adolescent sexual activity… read more

www.familyfacts.org/reports/1/the-relationship-between-family-structure-and-sexual-activity

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UNITED STATES: “Mainstream Portrayals of Sex Seduce Teens, Researcher Finds” Orlando Sentinel - 7/10/07 - by Scott Travis

According to research to be presented the 18th International Nursing Research Congress Focusing on Evidence-Based Practice this week in Vienna, a sample of at-risk teenage girls in Florida reported that movies, TV shows, and song lyrics helped shape their impression that casual sex is commonplace and ordinary.

In the study, 20 females ages 14-18 incarcerated at the Okeechobee-based at-risk intervention facility VisionQuest were interviewed by Josie Weiss of Florida Atlantic University-Treasure Coast (FAU-TC). All the teens were sexually experienced; many had had unplanned and unprotected sex. While teachers and parents might promote responsible sexual decision-making, that was not the message that ultimately shaped teens’ attitudes, according to the study.

“It’s contrary to what many adults think. We don’t think sex is normal for teens,” said Weiss, who is an FAU-TC assistant nursing professor. “I think there are high-risk kids everywhere in every community in every school. If this group feels this way (that casual sex is commonplace and ordinary), other kids probably feel this way.” Weiss hopes the study encourages parents to communicate with their kids about sex to counteract the problem.

Of high school seniors, 60 percent are sexually active, according to the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy. Sexual activity has increased among youths 14 and younger in recent years, the organization said.

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UNDERSTANDING THE PRESIDENT’S HEALTHY MARRIAGE INITIATIVE

the erosion of marriage during the past four decades has had large-scale negative effects on both children and adults: It lies at the heart of many of the social problems with which the government currently grapples. The beneficial effects of marriage on individuals and society are beyond reasonable dispute, and there is a broad and growing consensus that government policy should promote rather than discourage healthy marriage.

www.heritage.org/research/reports/2004/03/understanding-the-presidents-healthy-marriage-initiative

Pennsylvania Family Coalition | P.O. Box 1008, Gouldsboro, PA 18424 | tel 570 842 3205 |[email protected] | www.pafamilies.org

This paper provides a systematic review of the research literature examining the relationship between family structure and adolescent sexual activity… read more

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