If you can't honestly answer T(rue) to each of these items, (a)
you may be ruled by a false self and
not know it, and/or (b) you haven't prepared
enough to get the most from reading this. The rest of the article
assumes your Self is leading you now, you are seriously
interested in family-stress prevention vs. reduction, and
you have invested significant time and energy in steps 1 and 2 in this
series.
Choices
Prevention options below are grouped as (a) general and (b) if your
organization serves a significant number of
and stepfamilies.
Each choice below is backed by several levels of detail in this
non-profit site These are summary options:
General
Family-stress-Prevention Options
Opportunities here include alerting...
-
your staff, consultants, and funders,
-
the people you serve, and possibly...
-
a
larger target group of people
to the components of the
[wounds + unawareness] cycle and what they mean.
1)
Review
your organization's mission or vision statement (if any). Then
decide if you're comfortable focusing on improving the
personal lives and families of your staff. Do you feel professional
and/or humanitarian responsibility for their and their descendents'
welfare? If you don't alert them to the cycle and its risks, who
will? Note that psychological wounds and ineffective thinking and
communication hinder your staff's personal lives and the
effectiveness of their work.
2)
Initiate an explanation and discussion of the [wounds +
unawareness] cycle among your board members and senior management. Then
seek approval for pro-actively introducing these prevention steps to all
people in your organization or program.
3)
Assign a competent staff person or committee to (a) learn about the
cycle and the three prevention steps; and then to (b) draft a plan to
tailor the steps to fit your organization and mission. Edit the plan as
needed, inform relevant others of it and get their input, and
implement the plan over time. Part of such a plan can be to...
4)
Devise a curriculum to educate everyone in your organization (not
just professionals) on some or all of the key topics in this series.
Integrate the curriculum into any existing staff-development program.
5)
Compose and distribute a brochure or article on the [wounds +
unawareness] cycle, or one of its component topics - e.g. "effective
communication and problem-solving." Alternative: distribute
a memo to people in your organization alerting them to the cycle and its
effects, and suggesting that they study this prevention series of
articles (www.sfhelp.org/prevent/intro.htm) for their family's benefit.
6)
Train at least one of the personnel or human-resource people you
use in these prevention steps and related topics. Then encourage people
in all levels of your organization to use that person as a consultant
and resource in their own stress-prevention education and decisions.
7)
Review your organization's hiring policy and process, and
consider upgrading it to include assessing candidates for (a)
significant psychological wounds, and (b) knowledge of effective
communication and problem-solving basics and skills.
Prevention Options if
You Serve Divorcing Families and Stepfamilies
1)
Commission or make
a (a) demographic survey and (b) a needs-assessment study in your
service area to estimate the population of courting and re/married
stepfamilies that need services. Include separated
and re/divorced
stepfamilies. Option: use this experience-based summary of typical
surface problems and the
primary needs that cause them as a resource for your needs assessment
project.
2)
Survey the
network of
human-service providers in your service area to see if anyone
provides knowledge-based service for stepfamilies - specially preventive. Learn what they
can teach you about service to this population - directly, and by inference.
See if any are interested in collaborating in preventing re/divorce
by educating courting couples and family professionals who serve them.
3) Use
your findings and your mission statement to outline and propose a
re/divorce
prevention pilot program to your board, funders, and other relevant
people.
4)
Expand your
hiring criteria to include specific
training in, and experience with,
working with typical divorced-family and stepfamily clients. (a) Review your existing
staff to see if anyone has some of these criteria. (b) Consider
developing a staff specialist (in-house consultant) in stepfamily
assessment, needs, and service. (c) Make your consultant known to
other service providers;
5) _
Adopt or develop public education (e.g. a two hour seminar, with
summary handouts) to alert single and courting
co-parents in your community to stepfamily
basics,
realities,
, and
risks. _ Assign and develop
staff proficiency at presenting this model, say quarterly. _ Advertise the
model to related service providers in print and online. Option: sponsor public
education (news articles, TV programs, public speakers) on stepfamily-
related topics like these to raise public
awareness. Consider asking local schools (or parent-teacher organizations)
to feature a "stepfamily day," and offer classroom speakers
and handouts.
6) _
Develop a staff
in-service (educational) program about
stepfamily traits, needs, and service; _ train staff to
facilitate it, and _ present it at least annually. Invite colleagues
in other disciplines, and advertise the course design and materials to other
human-service organizations.
7)
If you provide direct clinical service, or consult with professionals who do,
-
Develop a treatment model that fits the unique needs
of typical courting and re/married stepfamilies. Evaluate using this
experience-based
model as a framework to build on.
-
Facilitate your
staff's learning and implementing your clinical model with stepfamily
clients, and evaluate the model.
-
Use parts of the model (e.g.
grief facilitation and communication-skill upgrading) to expand your program
(if any) for divorcing-biofamily or other
clients.
-
Upgrade supervisory skills to include evaluating clinical
work with this model.
-
Consider developing a (a)
multi-stepfamily treatment group, and/or treatment groups for (b)
co-parents and/or (c) stepkids.
8)
_ Develop a library of
stepfamily-related
educational materials, like the articles in this site*. Use them for
public, staff, and client education. Offer copies to other service providers
(including media) and relevant professional associations. Reality-check the
materials' accuracy and usefulness with all users.
9) If
consistent with your organization's mission statement and resources, consider
organizing and supporting community support groups for stepfamily
co-parents. Options:
-
use some version
of this guide; Assist group leaders in
public relations and advertising, hosting, materials, and group
facilitation; and/or ...
-
Host a
co-parent "chat-room" or message-board
forum on the Web.
10)
Design
and implement an educational outreach program to clergy and churches
in your service area. The objective is to (a) raise their
awareness of stepfamily problems, and (b) motivate them to evaluate
and warn re/marrying co-parents of what they're heading into,
and how to prepare. Specifically, encourage clergy to consider implementing
stepfamily-support ideas like these into their church communities.
A final "extra credit" option for preventing re/divorce is
to ...
11)
Lobby
the family-law (circuit court) jurisdiction in your service area to make
at least summary stepfamily education mandatory for divorcing co-parents.
Nationally, about 70% of divorcing parents re/marry within 10 years,
forming a stepfamily. I suspect few to none
know
what they're getting into, and over half re/divorce legally or live in misery.
Either way, they inadvertently pass on the
that promotes
in their kids, and webs of major related social problems (e.g. drug usage
and addiction).
Recap
This article encourages the policy and decision-makers of human-service
organizations to add staff training and informed services to target reducing
local and national stepfamily re/divorce. Due to little informed needs
assessment and advocacy, and triaging dwindling human-service funding,
typical communities have little or no effective services to help new and
troubled stepfamilies.
With regional variation, potential (absent-parent),
psychological (courting) and legal stepfamilies comprise 20% to 40% of the
families in typical American counties. In aggregate, that translates to many
thousands of adults and dependent kids.
The article offers perspective on the unremarked "re/divorce epidemic" in
most communities, and summarizes 11 specific things human-service
administrators and boards can do to prevent
vulnerable co-parents and kids from forming low-nurturance
stepfamilies.
The Web address of this article is
http://sfhelp.org/prevent/agencies.htm