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   Home  > University > Articles

What works in Relationship Education?

By Dave Percival

Day 1

The meeting was chaired by Dr Samantha Callan, who is known to many in the UK as the architect of the recent CSJ publications on Family Breakdown. Quoting Scott Stanley, she summarised in a sentence where we are in terms of research and policy: “We know enough to take action, and we need to take action to learn more.”

Scott Stanley then opened the meat of the debate presenting his Overview of the field and policy responses”, some of his key points being:

  • As a society we want marriage and a spire to it, but are afraid of it.
  • The poorest in society aspire to marriage most strongly, but view it as an “out of reach” aspiration
  • The thinking seems to be “I can avoid the potential pain of divorce if I avoid marriage”, thinking that is flawed as the pain is associated with breaking emotional, social and financial bonds, not just the legal form.
  • The research suggests that lower commitment to the institution of marriage is also associated with lower levels of inter-personal commitment.
  • Work with the PREP programme has helped identify a range of both static (ie relatively unchanging) factors (eg family background) and dynamic factors (eg communication style) both of which influence relationship outcomes. When working with existing couples it makes sense to focus effort on the dynamic factors (recognising the others as background), whilst when working with singles (pre-relationship) it makes sense to focus on static factors as part of the selection process.
  • “Commitment” is the glue that binds relationships together – it involves “making choices to give up other choices” and almost always requires a long term perspective. It has two components: Dedication – the intrinsic desires for relational success; and Constraints – the external factors which represent the cost of exit from the relationship.
  • “Inertia” is the physical principle that it requires work to change the state of any body.. Many couples start down a trajectory of relational changes without making explicit choices about the destination. As a result they enter stages of the relationship (eg cohabitation) without having recognised that they are closing off options (reducing choice). Inertia results not in higher intrinsic risk, but in risky couples staying together longer.
  • Couples today tend to slide through decisions – ie they act before having done the explicit investigation to gain information, as a basis for evaluating the choices and options being given up in making the choice.
  • The externally applied rules of yesterdays society forced a structure into the decision making that led to explicit commitment steps which allowed exit from risky relationships earlier and at lower cost.

Howard Markman then addressed a key practical factor in planning interventions with couples “Do we need both partners in the room to get positive effects from couples based relationship and marriage education?” Some of his key points included:

  • The dream of happy marriage is almost universal, and the forms that this takes are varied. However the forms that marital distress takes are relatively few, and identifiable. It is distress (and in particular disruptive conflict) that drives instability.
  • Whilst 65-75% of US couples agree that Rel Ed’n is valuable, there is still a real challenge getting couples in the room. Men are less interested, there are logistical barriers, and people lack understanding of what it really involves.
  • There is growing evidence that having just one partner attend the education can be effective, even if not as much as with couple.

It was then the turn of Galena Rhoades to outline advances made in delivering relationship education in a one partner framework.

  • Traditional Rel education aimed at addressing skills and personality issues to increase stability. It however reach many marginalised in society.
  • The objectives of a more universal programme should be:
    • To equip good relationships for greater stability and success
    • To enable those in bad relationships to exit safely
    • To enable those in no relationship to form good ones in future.
  • The “Within my Reach” programme is aimed at individuals helping them Understand Healthy Relationships, Build Healthy Relationships, and Move forward in life to achieve them. The programme not only draws on the research from PREP etc, but also on the experience of the Domestic Violence field etc on unsafe relationships.

In the panel discussion that followed a number of important points emerged:

  • The effectiveness of any programme is heavily influenced by the “messenger” who needs to be seen as trusted and relatable (rather than an expert). Therapists actually struggle to be good presenters because of their inherent interest in gaining insight, rather than demonstrating ways forward. Some key skills in managing groups etc are important.
  • The evidence on how long a course should be is mixed. Up to 10 hours seems to increase impact, thereafter it is of less value. What appears to be important is the opportunity to socialise the learning by practice, and by support in the community.

After lunch we were first treated to samples of some of the new Marriage Course and Marriage Preparation Course videos which include not only the course delivery, but materials to recruit couples etc onto the courses.

This was followed by Penny Mansfield of One Plus One outlining various of their current initiatives:

  • The Brief Encounters training, which equips Health Visitors to better support young mum’s in their relationships particularly in the post-natal period
  • TheCoupleConnection.net which is a new web based support site aimed at strengthening their adult relationship to the benefit of their parenting. Their forums are moderated by Marriage Care counsellors to provide guidance
  • A relationship education course delivered via netmums which had some 2000 participants with some very positive feedback response

Phillippa Taylor of CARE then kindly presented a paper from Switzerland (on behalf of the author unable to attend for health reasons) where the Paarlife course is showing particular promise in equipping couples to deal with stress on a relationship.

  • Evidence suggests that low levels of stress make little difference to couple stability, but high levels can lead to breakdown.
  • The key to handling stress successfully appears to be Dyadic coping, or emotional support.
  • Emotional support involves: explicit acknowledgement of the feelings (and underlying factors) associated with the stress; providing appropriate emotional support tuned to the feelings; and feedback both of the response to this support, and what else is needed.

Finally for the day Guro Hansen Helskog outlined the Norwegian experience both with regard to the way society had evolved over the past 50 years, and the policy and educational responses.

  • Norwegian family life, and structure has moved from a “housewife” model in the 50’s to one where today men are fully engaged in “home-making” as a joint project – an egalitarian couple.
  • Relationship education is now state sponsored and provided, focussed both on stabilising couples, and on helping separated families have a “good enough” relationship for the sake of their children.
  • The focus is on “lasting relationships” rather than marriage, and the media has been supportive in normalising the perceptions of family tensions etc. There is a shared national vision of “true humanity” which guides approaches to education, working life, health, etc in a holistic way.

As a closing thought Guro left us with the phrase “Parents used to have lots of children – now children have lots of parents” to reflect on overnight.

Introduction

Day 2


In this article
- Introduction
- Day 1
- Day 2

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