Statewide Chair Mary McLellan Heritage Community Services Regional Chairs Mariscia Cooper (Pee Dee) Charlie Lybrand (Lowcountry) Lenna Neill (Upstate) Rev. Randy Riddle (Grand Strand) Dr. Roger Rollins (CSRA) Charlotte Valentine-Green (Ace Basin)   Advisory Council Eugene Bacote Sumter School Dist.17 Dr. Vera Bailey Hilton Head Preg. Care Center Pamela Berry Colleton Fire and Rescue Dr. Vonda Calcutt Lowcountry Ctr. Diabetes Sen. Chip Campsen Charleston/Berkeley Rev. Chuck Coward Charleston Outreach Robin Crosby Colleton County Ligure Ellington Ret.Capt. Charleston City Police Dr. Randy Goings Chiropractic Physician Faye Hill Lowcountry Pregnancy Center & SC Association Pregnancy Care Centers WC Hoecke Fatherhood Practioner Leroy Lewis Upward Bound at Cof C Norman L. Moore, Jr. Colonel, USAFR(Ret) Cyndi Mosteller Comm. for Higher Education Alexia Newman Carolina Pregnancy Center Fred Payne Marriage Savers of Upstate Jerry & Barbara Seymour R& R Marriage Min. Ronald Shoupe Colleton County Dr. A. V. Strong A Better Way, Inc. (Gang Out) Dr. Robert Thomas Pulmonary Medicine Pastor Phil Thrailkill St. Luke UMC Hartsville Kelly Walker Upstate Fatherhood Coalition	July 22, 2009 SC Healthy Family Formation Coalition E-News!   Thursday Night: Watch Wedded Bliss Foundation on CNN CNN's Black in America 2 airs Thursday July 23, 8:00 pm featuring Nisa Muhammad, executive director of Wedded Bliss Foundation and her work to strengthen marriage in the Black community using Basic Training for Couples.  The program is a community partnership with Lifestarts Youth and Family Services in Washington, DC.     Marriage/Relationship Education Essential to Health Care Reform Any sustainable Health Care Reform must include, not eliminate, measures to promote Healthy Family Formation and Maintenance.  Programs that teach Marriage/Relationship Education are a preventive intervention to reduce future chronic illness and promote well-being in families & couples.   Sound far fetched?  Not to Jana Staton, Ph.D., of Marriage Works .  During the  2009 Smart Marriages Conference in Orlando, Staton, and colleagues presented research entitled Marriage Education and Health Care Reform: What’s the Connection?   “Health is now recognized as being created through an ongoing interrelationship between bio-psycho-social factors.” “Therefore, the family is a primary place where health is created, or health is damaged.  The quality of the marital relationship is key to the quality of health created within the family.”   For example, adult health depends on healthy social relationships and support for optimal immune system functioning, low chronic stress, and adherence to health care regimens.  Partners experiencing relationship/marital conflict or distress develop symptoms of chronic stress (increases in stress hormones) leading to chronic inflammatory responses affecting the immune system. (cardiovascular disease, osteoporosis, arthritis, Type 2 diabetes, certain cancers, and periodontal disease) (Families and Health, June 2, 2009 ) Couples in such toxic relationships should be referred for counseling and/or separate.   Apparently, children are not as resilient as we’ve been told.  Their health and well-being depends on safe, stable, nurturing parents, especially on two biological parent families.  Children living in high conflict homes or watching their parents divorce develop symptoms of chronic stress as they endure loss of income, access to care, less parental involvement, instability and relocation.  These children also tend to engage in health risk behaviors that over time can produce acute and chronic illnesses. Over the past 10 years, Marriage/Relationship Education has been well-documented as a connection to healthier children and healthier adults.  A review of over 100 Marriage/Relationship Education studies revealed that there is, “Clear evidence that Marriage Education programs work to reduce strife, improve communication, increase parenting skills, increase stability and enhance marital happiness.” (Heritage Foundation Backgrounder #1606 ) In addition, the California Healthy Marriage Initiative states that “Relationship and Marriage Education presents society with a powerful and cost-effective approach for helping couples form and sustain healthy marriages and healthy families.” (Healthy Marriages, Healthy Children) As Health Care Reform legislation is debated, it makes sense to support programs that teach our teens and young adults the knowledge and life skills necessary to prepare for and form healthy families.  By doing so, we are improving the health of families for generations to come.
	The South Carolina Healthy Family Formation Coalition (SC HFF Coalition) is organized and staffed by Heritage Community Services. The SC HFF Coalition promotes child and family well-being by providing opportunities for statewide communication about such issues as: adolescent pregnancy, unwed childbearing, fatherlessness, sexual exploitation of our youth, dating violence and domestic violence, child abuse and neglect, gang activity and youth violence.    Coalition members support healthy family formation initiatives that integrate character-based life skills, teen pregnancy prevention with an emphasis on abstinence-centered education, and the importance of fidelity-within-marriage.   Together we can impact our culture so that forming healthy families becomes a norm, rather than the exception, for South Carolina.   Please, forward this E-News to interested friends, family and colleagues and ask them to consider joining the Coalition.   Join/Subscribe   Unsubscribe   PRIVACY POLICY: Information you share will never be sold, rented, or given to any third party.   Contact Mary McLellan , Statewide Chairman (843)654-7740 ext.122