Web-Based Marriage Education for Foster, Kinship, and Adoptive Couples

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Half of all marriages end in divorce and many others suffer periods of acute stress. The impact on couples and children is substantial. Intervention efforts in this area are increasingly focusing on marital education; that is, teaching couples social-communication skills and attuning expectations to avoid the negative communication patterns that tend to erode satisfaction in the relationship over time. Prevention and Relationship Enhancement Program, or PREP, is a leading empirically-based program in this area. The program has also been adapted for use with special populations for whom marriage expectations are closely linked to circumstances and/or values. Researchers agree that training must separately address groups based on, for example, religious values, socioeconomic status, and military life. Another large and unique group is foster, kinship, and adoptive parents. These couples are subjected to extraordinary stressors on their marriage: trying to manage very disturbed child behavior, dealing with the care system, relating to birth parents, and perceptions of being a different type of family. The stability of the marriage is also critical to maintaining the placement of the child. We propose developing an interactive Web-based version of PREP that specifically addresses the needs and challenges of this population. In Phase I we will develop the first lecture of the training on recognizing communication patterns in relationships. In addition to the multimedia training, the module will include an interactive assessment component and an interactive coaching journal. The unit will be tested with a national sample of foster, kinship, and adoptive couples on measures of patterns of communication in relationships, content knowledge, and relationship confidence.