We are encouraging the broad expansion of relationship and marriage education globally. For this to happen, we need people committed to encouraging individuals and couples to seek education as they prepare for and build relationships and marriages. We also need many more trained relationship and marriage educators. Learn below how you can begin the process in your community!

If you are interested in being a marriage educator, please subscribe to our marriage education coaching listserve at marriagetransformationeducator-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.
We hope all of you are also subscribed to our complimentary, monthly
e-newsletter (see our homepage).

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What is Marriage Education?

Marriage education is a process of teaching important knowledge, skills, and attitudes about relationships and marriage. Marriage education is not counseling or therapy, but instead it focuses on building understanding and competence. In other words, its purpose is to build capacity and strengths and equip people to be successful in their roles as relationship partners and then as marriage partners. It begins with preparation for relationships and marriage for individuals and couples of all ages and experience levels. Marriage education provides marriage-strengthening tools for happily married couples. It can also provide skill building and assistance for deeply troubled couples considering separation or divorce, although this education is usually best paired with help from a trained counselor. Marriage education's focus is on taking timely actions to prevent future problems.

Click here to view our What is Marriage Education? document for general audiences and click here for a Bahá'í-specific document. We hope to create similar documents for other faiths. Please contact us if you are interested in us creating one for your religious community.

Systematic Training

At this point in the our project's development, we do not have the necessary personnel or finances to set up a global system of training and coaching facilitators. However, all of you can become marriage educators independently of that system existing, because the training is available from other sources, and the needs are far too great to wait. And, we are committed to coaching you in how to do that through email (susanne@marriagetransformation.com) or telephone, 800-501-6682. It will take commitment and individual initiative on your part.

Group Sessions

Some of you have asked about facilitating sessions based on our books. We encourage you to set up informal group sessions, perhaps with a facilitator who simply takes the group through each chapter of the book. You can also set up a workshop using the materials...feel free to contact us for assistance.

How You Can Get Started

At the following link on our website, http://www.marriagetransformation.com/learning_recommendations.htm we are making recommendations of books, courses, and resources that will enhance your knowledge. We encourage you to use your local library, www.amazon.com , or local bookstores to begin to build your library of reference material. We are hearing about and reading new books all the time and also appreciate hearing which books you find valuable and which ones you do not. An excellent training course to be a relationship/marriage coach is www.prepare-enrich.com.

To stay current on marriage education, we strongly encourage you to be familiar with the Coalition for Marriage, Family, and Couples Education, also known as Smart Marriages, www.smartmarriages.com. Its website is the central collection of marriage education resources at the moment. There is an almost-daily news email that you can subscribe to that keeps readers up-to-date with everything related to marriage and divorce. The organization also runs an annual Smart Marriages Conference which provides extensive opportunities to be trained in a variety of marriage education options. WE STRONGLY ENCOURAGE YOUR ATTENDANCE. Pre- and post-conference sessions offer in-depth training, and the conference offers short training and informative sessions that will give you tools and information to use with others and your own marriage/relationships.

There are many Christian-based programs available that are excellent, and Les and Leslie Parrott's books are very good resources. See www.smartmarriages.com for details.

How We Can Assist You

Please stay in communication with us about your needs and with your questions and suggestions.

    - We will appreciate hearing when you have completed any marriage       education course, so we can update your record in our database.

    - Please watch for when Craig and Susanne are giving courses and
      workshops. We are often willing to have qualified co-facilitators or
      facilitators-in-training work with us if you request it. Email Susanne at
      susanne@marriagetransformation.com for more details.

    - If you are going to deliver a marriage education session to a group       and need coaching or potentially materials, please let us know.

For Members of the Baha'i Faith

Members of the Bahá'í Faith can be trained in delivering Core Curriculum marriage education. See www.louhelen.org for details. It is a good foundation to set you up to pair the Bahá'í teachings together with being trained in a research-based marriage education program and deliver a combined spiritual education and skills-training program to people.

You may be encouraged to participate in marriage education by a message to our project from the National Spiritual Assembly (NSA), "There is no question that the National Spiritual Assembly appreciates the importance of fostering strong marriages and healthy families in the Bahá'í community, and it values and applauds the efforts of believers...who take the initiative to create programs and offer opportunities to educate the friends and our Bahá'í institutions on this subject.  We agree that much more is needed in this area of community life...." The NSA has asked us to communicate to you that, while many Bahá'ís talk about the divorce rate in the Bahá'í community being very high, in fact this is unknown, as there have never been statistics compiled or accurately analyzed on this matter. Stastical compilation began in 2007.

At the 2007 Baha'i Social and Economic Development Conference held in Orlando, Florida, we presented two workshops. One was focused on individuals and couples and the other for members of various institutions. As part of both of these workshops, we included content about the synergy between marriage education and the core activities of the Baha'i community. You can download pdf files of the handouts as follows:

Workshop Handout - Individuals and Couples

Workshop Handout - Institutions

Our prayers and love are with you as you engage
in this vital endeavor!