Prevention Interventions Can Be Therapeutic
According to Gelatt, Adler-Baeder & Seeley (2010), couples and children in stepfamilies suffer from stress gained during marital and partner transition. They also face adjustment problems in psychosocial adjustment since they have to accept the individual differences and ensure strong family relationships. They may come across family conflict, social stress and other factors in social arena which end up affecting the psychological well-being. However, the authors show that prevention interventions can be therapeutic by focusing on family life education programs which can act as protective factors. The purpose of these programs is to improve communication, strengthen connection, build a normative step-family development and help the stepfamilies adjust and create family stability (Gelatt, Adler-Baeder & Seeley, 2010). The article introduces programs known as ‘web-based interactive multimedia (IMM) and self-administered marriage programs which play an important role in providing general education. The web-based interactive multimedia is an online learning where participants have self-administered programs. This means that participants have the opportunity to select prams based on family matters and also engage in social-cognitive learning. A good example that shows prevention interventions can be therapeutic is that IMM programs such as parenting toolkit helps parents learn more on effective parenting and stepparenting practices (Gelatt, Adler-Baeder & Seeley, 2010).
According to Huebner et al, (2009), the deployment of military has led to long term and short term effects to military families. Challenges include divorce, lack of marital satisfaction, stress, lack of marriage stability, incidents of remarriage, relationship conflict and more (Huebner et al, 2009). However, the human service delivery system in U.S supports these families cope with positive challenges. The article introduces a new approach based on family support programs which is connected with informal community to offer support to the military families. The role of community is to build a support system that ensures partnership between community and families. The introduced prevention intervention is called ‘community-capacity building approach’ which develops social actions and achievable goals (Huebner et al, 2009). It comprises shared responsibility and collective competence where the community shows concern on the general welfare and addresses community needs effectively. Examples of programs designed by community support system include ‘Youth Development Project’ which its role is to recognize the need of young people and build family resilience. The community also provides relational and practical skills which aids the family to cope with challenges. The goal of these programs is to promote family resilience, provide relationship skills, problem solving skills and social support (Huebner et al, 2009).
References
Gelatt, V. A., Adler-Baeder, F., & Seeley, J. R. (2010). An interactive web-based program for stepfamilies:
Development and evaluation of efficacy. Family Relations, 59(5), 572–586.
Huebner, J,A., Mancini A,J., Bowen, L, G., & Orthner K, D. (2009).Shadowed by War: Building Community
Capacity to Support Military Families. Family Relations, 58, 216-228.
