One Plus One e-bulletin, No 4, April 2007
     
  Welcome to One Plus One's e-bulletin

This free monthly bulletin will keep you up-to-date with our projects and provides a listing of the most recent research and policy news concerning families and relationships.

You can visit the National Information Centre on Relationships anytime for a regularly updated news board, conference listing, research and statistics on a wide range of topics and an online library of research papers from the field.

If you do not want to receive this bulletin in future, please email info@oneplusone.org.uk

  
     
     
 
Contents:
News from One Plus One
Research and policy news
About One Plus One
 
   
     
  News from One Plus One  
     
  Research associate Dr Elizabeth van Acker from Griffith University, Queensland, Australia has been visiting One Plus One for the last month. She presented two seminars for staff and visitors on marriage education policy in Australia and the USA. To view the paper she presented click here.  
     
  Penny Mansfield, Director of One Plus One, was interviewed by journalist Emma Jayne Jones for online magazine All About You. The article addresses the issue of unmarried partners. To read the full report click here.  
     
 

Penny also spoke at the National Childbirth Trust Joint Forum entitled Working Together, Inside and outside the NCT in Bedford. As well as Penny's presentation on the Transition to Parenthood - Changing Relationships, One Plus One staff held a workshop on Relationship stresses, supporting new parents and improving communication.

 
     
 

The Community Practitioners and Health Visitors Association held an interest group this month on parenting and family support at which Penny presented on difficulties within parental relationships.

 
     
 

Penny attended the last meeting of the Health Visitor Review Working Group this month. The report is scheduled to be sent to the Secretary of State for Health, Patricia Hewitt, by the end of April.

  
     
  The Training department at One Plus One have been busy recruiting new trainers for the Brief Encounters® course. The recruitment drive has been in response to increasing demand for the Brief Encounters® course whether in its 3-day or 1-day format. Those working across a range of disciplines have shown a great deal of interest as recent policy developments start to acknowledge the important links between the quality of family relationships, parenting and child outcomes and the need for an integrated whole-family approach. Brief Encounters® offers practitioners training and skills to help make an early intervention by engaging with clients, using active listening skills, assessing needs and making effective referrals where necessary. Contact the Training Team for more information about Brief Encounters®.  
     
 

March/April saw the release of both the Marriage, divorce (2004) and adoption statistics (2005) (Series FM2) & Social Trends 37 from National Statistics. The National Information Centre on Relationships has now been fully updated with the new statistics. To visit the Information Centre go to the One Plus One website.

  
     
 

One Plus One held the last of three Brief Encounters® workshops commissioned by Action for Prisoners Families in Birmingham for support staff working in prison visitor centres and in the community with prisoners’ families, who regularly find themselves in situations where they are ‘turned to’ about family and relationship issues. We also held this month the first of a two part Brief Encounters® training course for Coram Family workers as part of the DfES commissioned Early Learning Partnership Project.

 
   
     
  Research and policy news  
     
  We regularly monitor and select information from Government departments, research centres, publishers, and relationship and family organisations. Below you will find a listing of news from the last month. Each headline provides a link to the original news release. A regularly updated news board can be found in our National Information Centre on Relationships.  
     
  Policy and Practice  
 
Family and Parenting Institute, Parenting UK and Kings College London to run new National Academy for Parenting Practitioners
UNICEF and the Department of Health release new leaflet on breastfeeding
Psychologist urges rationing TV for children
New support for Commissioners of children's services from the Department of Health
DfES publishes government response to consultation on Care Matters: Transforming the Lives of Children in Care
Ofsted report on local authority children's services
Department for Trade and Industry announces flexible working for carers
Home Office: More support for victims of sexual violence
 
 
Department of Health: Maternity Matters
 
     
  Research and Statistics  
 
Research from AIFS Caring for children
Researchers find women affected more by working from home
New research shows adults have difficulty telling when children lie
Report from SPRU: Child support policy: An international perspective
ESRC study on homework and keeping children, parents and teachers together
Family and Parenting Institute poll on health visiting
National Statistics publishes Social Trends 37
 
     
  Journal Articles  
 

Parent-Child Relationships, Partner Relationships, and Emotional Adjustment: A Birth-to-Maturity Prospective Study by Geertjan Overbeek, Håkan Stattin, Ad Vermulst, Thao Ha and Rutger C. M. E. Engels, Developmental Psychology, Volume 42, Number 2 pp429-437. To visit the Developmental Psychology website click here

Cumulative Risk, Maternal Responsiveness, and Allostatic Load Among Young Adolescents
by Gary W. Evans, Pilyoung Kim, Albert H. Ting, Harris B. Tesher and Dana Shannis, Developmental Psychology, Volume 42, Number 2 pp341-351. To visit the Developmental Psychology website click here

An Exploration of Aspects of Boundary Ambiguity Among Young, Unmarried Fathers During the Prenatal Period by Randall Leite, Family Relations, Volume 56, April 2007 pp162-174. To visit the Family Relations website click here

An Approach to Preventing Coparenting Conflict and Divorce in Low-Income Families Strengthening Couple Relationships and Fostering Fathers' Involvement by Carolyn Pape Cowan, Philip A. Cowan, Marsha Kline Pruett and Kyle Pruett, Family Process, Volume 46, Number 1 2007 pp109-121. To visit the Family Process website click here
Maternal Cohabitation and Child Well-Being Among Kindergarten Children by Julie E. Artis, Journal of Marriage and Family, Volume 69, February 2007 pp105-122. To read the article click here
More Kin, Less Support: Multipartnered Fertility and Perceived Support Among Mothers by Kristen Harknett and Jean Knabb, Journal of Marriage and Family, Volume 69, February 2007 pp237-235. To read the article click here
 
 

Parents' Expectations About Childrearing After Divorce: Does Anticipating Difficulty Deter Divorce? by Anne-Rigt Poortman and Judith A. Seltzer, Journal of Marriage and Family, Volume 69, February 2007 pp254-269. To read the article click here
 
     
   
     
  About One Plus One  
     
  One Plus One is a team of researchers, practitioners and information specialists whose aim is to enhance understanding of how family relationships contribute to the well being of adults and children through three key activities:  
 
inquiring - monitoring and evaluating knowledge about relationships and effective support in order to develop key messages for policy and practice;
informing - creating imaginative formats for key messages tailored to different audiences, and raising awareness of the impact of couple relationships on the well being of individuals, families and communities;
innovating - developing innovative ways of getting specialist knowledge and skills about adult family relationships and early intervention to everyone working in the frontline with families, thereby adding value to existing practice.