Springfield, MO -- The presentation of the $5.2 million Healthy Marriage Grant will take place at the Forest Institute of Professional Psychology on Tuesday, January 9, 2007 at 3:00 pm. Sidonie Squier, Director of the Office of Family Assistance, Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, will speak on the importance of increasing community awareness of the project to provide healthy marriage and healthy relationship education to 29 counties in Southwest Missouri. Project mentors and trainers will also be introduced.

Two major grant partners include The Pregnancy Care Center, who will focus on work with high school students in nine school districts and unwed, expectant mothers and fathers in the region, and Ozarks Marriage Matters, who will provide educational services to target referral groups and couples at risk for divorce. In addition, there are more than 20 other local and regional partners, including Head Start, members of the faith community and social service agencies.

The mission of the Healthy Marriage Initiative (HMI) is to help couples, who have chosen marriage for themselves, gain greater access to marriage education services, on a voluntary basis, where they can acquire the skills and knowledge necessary to form and sustain a healthy marriage. The HMI includes activities such as:

• funding demonstration projects to provide voluntary marriage education services and build effective broad-based community coalitions to expand awareness of the value of healthy marriage to children, adults and communities
• including healthy marriage services in federally supported programs, as appropriate
• conducting research and evaluations on healthy marriage services
• providing information, training and technical assistance to interested government, community and faith-based organizations.

The goals of the Healthy Marriage Initiative are to:

• increase the percentage of children who are raised by two parents in a healthy marriage
• increase the percentage of married couples who are in healthy marriages
• increase the percentage of premarital couples who are equipped with the skills and knowledge necessary to form and sustain a healthy marriage
• increase the percentage of youth and young adults who have the skills and knowledge to make informed decisions about healthy relationships including skills that can help them eventually form and sustain a healthy marriage
• increase public awareness about the value of healthy marriages and the skills and knowledge that can help couples form and sustain healthy marriages
• encourage and support research on healthy marriages and healthy marriage education
• increase the percentage of women, men and children in homes that are free of domestic violence

Only 226 grants were funded out of 1651 grant applications. Only 14, including Forest Institute's grant, were funded at a Priority 2 level.

For more information or to schedule interviews with the instructors, contact the Operation Us office at (417) 823-3469 or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .