"I get by with a little help from my friends: Reflections on two decades of promoting and experiencing relational health."

Arcus Award Family Life Education Update for Practitioners Presentation

Francesca Adler-Baeder and Ted Futris

We will offer summaries and reflections on the evolution of the science and practice of supporting individuals’ efforts to form and sustain high quality couple relationships.  We will emphasize the last two decades of the focused efforts to develop the field of relationship education, and specifically, Extension and family life educators’ roles.  We will discuss experience in translational processes used in relationship education resource development and will feature the collaboratively developed model for guiding couples education content.  We will engage attendees in these core principles and together consider ways to enhance their application in our work and in our own lives, practicing what we teach!  Our goal is for attendees to understand and celebrate the collective advances in the science of relationship education, consider the innovative and promising current trends, and join the chorus of calls for the future in ensuring models of best practices and equity for all in pursuit of relational health. 

Objectives:
1. Participants will increase their knowledge of the evolution of the field of relationship education, research on its effectiveness, and Extension’s role in its development. 
2. Participants will have a better understanding of effective translational processes used in relationship education resource development and program design.
3. Participants will increase their understanding of key content for relationship education and its research basis.
4. Participants will have increased ability to apply relationship education core principles to their own lives and be better equipped to ensure relational health for themselves and those they influence.