"If you want to be an engineer, doctor, accountant, etc., there are schools for that; but if you want to be a mother, father, husband, or wife there are few, if any schools. The importance of child rearing and marriage is left to guesswork, trial and error, and whatever you picked up from your parents“ (Kunjufu, J. (1984). Developing positive self-images & discipline in Black children. Chicago, IL: African-American Images. p. 67)

1. Take the Plunge
into
Healthy Family Relationships:
Knowledge, Strategies and
Resources
Lorraine C. Blackman, PhD, LCSW, CFLE
Indiana University, School of Social Work
IUPUI Campus
October 27, 2006

2. Time Frame
• 1 hour 15 minute breakout session
– 10 minutes per topic
– 15 final questions/discussion)

3. Session Goals:
• Identify research-based knowledge/information about the most
effective ways to:
– build new families that will be healthy and strong from the beginning
– enhance already healthy and strong families
– strengthen families that need to be healthier and stronger
• Teach research-based strategies for taking the plunge…
• Provide resources to keep you swimming…

4. Target Audience:
• Health service providers
• Social workers
• School administrators
• Teachers
• Day care providers
• Parents

5. Purpose:
• Teach participants how to create and
maintain, well-functioning and satisfying
family relationships.
• Provide resources to help you to keep
swimming in healthy family relationships.

6. Problem/Rationale:
• Why do we need to take the plunge into strong, healthy
family relationships?
– Teen dating violence (20% of female high school students)
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/rr5022a1.htm
– Births to unmarried women, ages 15+ (34.6 percent) and most to
women with high school education or less
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr54/nvsr54_02.pdf.
– Divorce (40% of marriages end in divorce)
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr54/nvsr54_20.pdf
– New AIDS cases: 43,171 (2003)
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/aids-hiv.htm.

7. What is a
strong, healthy family?
• Strong:
– Stable, not at risk of breaking up
– Members not in
• foster care
• Incarceration
• or other institutional care

8. What is a
strong, healthy family?
• Healthy:
– Functional
• Producing children, establishing legal responsibility for them
and rearing them to be healthy, productive members of
society.
• Providing mutual aid to each other, especially in hard times.
• Providing emotional support, love, affection for each other.
• Providing regular, mutually satisfying sex to adult intimate
partners.
• Controlling sexual behavior of members to avoid incest,
sexual assault, other sexual violence, etc.
– Satisfying
• Meeting or allowing the needs of everyone in the relationship
to be met.

9. Maslow’s Hierarchy of
Needs (Maslow, 1970).
Physical: Food, Water, Oxygen, Rest, Relaxation, Sex
Safety: Security, Comfort, Freedom From Fear, Peace
Attachment: Belonging, To Love, To BeLoved
Esteem: Self-Respect & Respect from Others
Mental: Knowledge, Understanding,
Newness
Order & Beauty; Pleasant, Entertaining
Accomplishment:
Meaningful Goals,
Fulfill Potential
Spiritual Transcendence

10. Which relationships should be in
our focus?
• Relationships with self
• Couple relationships
• Parent-child relationships
• Sibling relationships
• Relationships between household members and extended kin
• Relationships between household members and friends
• Relationships between household members and work/school

11. Causes of weak and unhealthy
relationships
• Self:
– Negative experiences in childhood, adolescence, or
adulthood
• Abandonment, abuse, neglect, exposure to violence
– Anti-social values (i.e., ideas about what is
right/wrong)
– Destructive coping strategies (e.g., substance
abuse/addictions, power & control).

12. Causes of weak and unhealthy
relationships
• Couples
• Parents-children
• Households, extended kin, friends, work, school
– Insufficient or erroneous information
– Dysfunctional attitudes (e.g., selfishness, neediness)
– Poor fitting role expectations
– Poor fitting or anti-social values
– Destructive coping strategies (e.g., substance abuse/addictions, power
& control).

13. Strategies and Resources
• Build new family relationships that will be healthy and strong from
the beginning
– Plunge into
• Early prenatal health care
• Parenting education http://www.imcpl.org/cgi-bin/irntop.pl
– See: Blackman, L.C. (2006). The African American
Parent Training Program: Pulling together to Rear Our
Children – They Grow Up Only Once! www.aafle.org
• Good formal education for employment or entrepreneurship
– Graduate from high school!
– Vocational education or college after high school
• Enjoy childhood and adolescence to become the best person
possible! See: Covey, 2006 and Murray, 2001.
• Learn “How to avoid marrying a jerk [or jerkette]!”. See
http://www.nojerks.com/
• Network with Indiana Healthy Marriage and Family Coalition
http://www.ihmfc.org/

14. Strategies and Resources
• Enhance already healthy and strong family relationships
– Engaged couples
– Married couples at every stage of family life (See
www.smartmarriages.com)
• Newly weds
• Couples with young children (birth or adoption)
• Couples in the military See
http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Jan2006/20060127_4034.htm
• Couples with adolescents
• Couples with adult children
• Couples again!
– Couples of various ethnic groups and sexual orientations
• See: Blackman, L.C. (2005).The African American Marriage
Enrichment Program: How to Make Your Good Thing Better
www.aafle.org
• Gay Male and Lesbian Partners. See
http://www.chidwick.ca/familylife/GayLesbian/index.htm

15. Strategies and Resources
• Strengthen family relationships that need to be healthier
and stronger
– Individual counseling, psychotherapy, life coaching
– Couples and family therapy.
• See:
– American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy
http://www.therapistlocator.net/therapistlocator/index.asp
– Indiana Healthy Marriage and Family Coalition
http://www.ihmfc.org/
– Certified batterer’s intervention programs
• See Indiana Coalition against Domestic Violence
http://violenceresource.org/bipcertprog.htm

16. Now what?
• Come on! Take the
plunge into healthy
relationships!
• The water’s fine!

17. Resources to keep you
swimming…
• For numerous articles on marriage education,
log onto
http://www.govmine.com/ts/10/search.do?qgeneral=
marriage+education&ce=true&je=
true&useractionfiltered=gm_homeSearch
• For numerous articles on healthy relationships,
log onto
http://www.govmine.com/ts/10/search.do?qgeneral=
healthy+relationships&id=mine&fm=l&sc=&je=
true&useractionfiltered=gm_upperSearch

18. References
• Barrios, L.C., Davis, M.K., Kann, L., Desai, S., Mercy, J. A., Reese,
L.E., Sleet, D.A., Sosin, D,M. (2001). School Health Guidelines to
Prevent Unintentional Injuries and Violence. Morbidity and Mortality
Weekly Report 50 (RR22). 1-46 Available online at
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/rr5022a1.htm.
• Chadwick, A. Gay Male and Lesbian Partner Program. Guelph, ON,
Canada. Family Life Education Services. Available at
http://www.chidwick.ca/familylife/GayLesbian/index.htm#Ordering
• Covey, S. (2006). 6 Most Important Decisions You'll Ever Make: A 7
Habits Guide for Teens. NY: Simon & Schuster Adult Publishing
Group.
• Information and Referral Network. Central Indiana Human Services
Database. Indianapolis, IN. Available online at
http://www.imcpl.org/cgi-bin/irntop.pl
• Maslow, A.H. (1970) Motivation and Personality, (2nd
ed.). NY: Harper
& Row.

19. References
• Martin, J.A., Hamilton, B.E., Sutton, P.D., Ventura, S.J., Menacker,
F., & Munson, M.L. (2005). Births: Final data for 2003. National vital
statistics reports (54)2. Hyattsville, MD: National Center for Health
Statistics. Available online at
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr54/nvsr54_02.pdf.
• Munson ML, Sutton PD. (2006). Births, marriages, divorces, and
deaths: Provisional data for 2005. National vital statistics reports
(54)20. Hyattsville, MD: National Center for Health Statistics.
Available online at
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr54/nvsr54_20.pdf.
• Murray, J. (2001). But I Love Him: Protecting Your Teen Daughter
from Controlling, Abusive Dating Relationships. NY: HarperCollins
Publishers.
• Van Epp, J. (2006). How to Avoid Marrying a Jerk: The Fool-Proof
Way to Follow Your Heart Without Losing Your Mind. NY: McGraw-
Hill.