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Giving Child Welfare Professionals Tools to Strengthen Relationships, Marriages

Child welfare professionals know that children are safer and healthier when the adults in their lives have healthy relationships, but most child welfare professionals are not trained to educate couples about strong relationships and marriages. Researchers at the University of Missouri (MU) are working to train current and future child welfare professionals to help individuals and families strengthen their relationships.

Funded by the Department of Health and Human Services Administration for Children and Families, Healthy Relationship and Marriage Education Training (HRMET), is a five-year project facilitated by MU Extension and David Schramm, PhD, an assistant professor of human development and family studies and state extension specialist in the MU College of Human Environmental Sciences. The purpose of the project is to develop training programs that give child welfare workers basic tools to foster positive relationships. The ultimate goal is to improve the stability and well-being of children by helping their parents and caregivers form and maintain strong couple and marital relationships.

"Many parents face multiple stressors that can weaken their couple relationships and spill over into parent-child relationships," Schramm says. "If [child welfare professionals] can teach parents to be more kind, understanding, and respectful in their couple relationships, the result will be safer, happier environments for children."

HRMET's curriculum is two-pronged: a graduate-level course for students at MU and online and one-day training sessions for child welfare professionals. Both courses give current and future social workers simple tools to help parents choose partners, manage conflict,and remain committed in their relationships.

— Source: University of Missouri-Columbia