Editorial: Funding Couple and Family Research

• Author: Jay L. Lebow
• Published date: 01 December 2015
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/famp.12192
• Date: 01 December 2015

DECEMBER 2015 VOLUME 54 NUMBER 4

Editorial: Funding Couple and Family Research

JAY L. LEBOW*

Fam Proc 54:577–580, 2015

This issue contains important threads of research in family science and family interven-

tion. James McHale and Carla Stover have edited a special section focused on th e

evaluation of programs to improve co-parenting, whereas articles by Bradford, Hawkins,

and Acker (2015), and Markman and Ritchie (2015) present a vitally important debate

about the role of relationship enrichment programs in serving more distressed couples

and whether consequent adaptations are needed in such programs in order to serve these

couples.

Summarizing the articles in their special section on co-parenting (Epstein et al., 2015;

Fagan, Cherson, Brown, & Vecere, 2015; Garneau & Adler-Baeder, 2015; Marczak,

Becher, Hardman, Galos, & Ruhland, 2015; Stover, 2015), J. McHale and C. Stover

(personal communication) write:

These data suggest that brief interventions offered to individual coparents can improve motiva-

tion to coparent, shift many parents’ perceptions of coparenting cooperation in a positive direc-

tion, and improve the quality of fathering in very high risk fathers with substance abuse and IPV

histories. Gains are seen in families led by unmarried parents and by step-parents as well as by

committed married couples. Observable changes in rapport, problem-solving and communication

can be achieved in families where coparents are non-residential and in some cases uncoupled.

And for some families, important coparenting benefits may even be gained from a mandated

court-connected intervention. Collectively, these findings open doors for a bold and long overdue

new direction—seeking to augment, and perhaps even bypass, traditional parenting or marriage

and relationship enhancement efforts to focus more specifically on strengthening coparenting alli-

ances. Based on all we presently know about the relevance of positive coparenting for promotion

of children’s adaptation and mental health, such community-based coparenting initiatives pro-

mise to offer fresh new routes to healthy and adaptive functioning for children and families.

Clearly this is a very promising set of programs and a developing body of research.

In their article, Bradford et al. (2015 ) cite the increasing numbers of distressed couples

in relationship enrichment programs and propose a number of program modifications they

Family Process and Family Institute at Northwestern, Evanston, IL.

*Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Jay L. Lebow, Family Institute at North-

western, 618 Library Place, Evanston, IL 60201. E-mail: j-lebow@northwestern.edu

577

Family Process, Vol. 54, No. 4, 2015 ©2015 Family Process Institute

doi: 10.1111/famp.12192