Getting Started

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Use the points below to help guide your healthy marriage initiative and become inspired. Perhaps you will think of something we haven’t thought of yet—if so, let us know and we’ll add it to our list of ideas.

Get Started:

Review the Research

Investigate the available data:

  • The divorce rate
  • Out-of-wedlock pregnancy rate
  • Percent of married couples that divorce
  • Percent of children born to un-married parents
  • Average age of first marriage
  • Years married before divorcing
  • Poverty rates for children whose parents are married, divorce, or are never-married
  • Presence of domestic violence in married or divorcing couples

Accurate data will reinforce your community’s need for a healthy marriage initiative. If the information you want is not gathered, call for its collection. Compare your findings with trends in neighboring states or localities to gain a better perspective.

Learn about the political and social climate:

  • Do you have existing champions or coalitions that are active on the issue?
  • Are there outspoken critics of the issue?
  • Have there been recent efforts by other policymakers that have been successful or unsuccessful? What led to this outcome?
  • Are there communities where marriage is no longer part of the social fabric?
  • Does your state/community perceive divorce as a problem?
  • How active are your faith and community-based organizations on this issue?

Once you understand the climate of your state or locality, you can effectively channel your efforts and ideas. Are there activities already underway? Build or expand upon those efforts. Talk to those involved about their challenges, opportunities for expansion, and request available evidence to support the need for their program.

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Establish A Clear Goal

Define how your effort will support healthy marriage. Policymakers can create and/or sustain a healthy marriage initiative in 4 basic ways:

  1. Identify the laws and policies that create systemic barriers to sustaining marriage
  2. Support programming that fosters healthy marriage
  3. Convene stakeholders who can help with your efforts
  4. Be a leader in bringing the issue of healthy marriages to the public discussion.

Consider building upon the following areas:

  • Encourage couples to access pre-marital counseling/marriage education
  • Build capacity for service providers that offer marriage/relationship education
  • Produce incentives for community organizations to start marriage/relationship education programs
  • Support youth programs that teach relationship skills and encourage healthy marriage
  • Promote relationship-related services to parents
  • Create positive public opinion about the benefits of marriage

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Build Allies

  • Identify individuals and organizations with similar goals i.e. community organizations that offer parenting education, and life skills training.
  • Communicate your intentions to potential allies.
  • Build a diverse team; be careful to include organizations that are not existing supporters of healthy marriage efforts.

Calm Skeptics

  • Recognize those who will oppose your efforts
  • Educate skeptics with the research
  • Tell cynics that your efforts:
    • Are not about forcing people to stay in abusive and unhealthy relationships
    • Do not mean that resources should be taken away from programs or services that benefit single-parent families
    • Are not meant to diminish the role of single parents

Read some lessons learned from other states that have successfully secured public support for healthy marriage. The Oklahoma Marriage Initiative is the longest-running state initiative.

Elements Of A Successful State Healthy Marriage Initiative:

  • Buy-in of high level leadership from various sections of government
  • Active partnerships between government, faith and community partners
  • Support from the public
  • An entrepreneurial approach
  • A marriage strengthening concept customized to the local need

Policymakers spent a significant amount of time networking and building allies; this resulted in a collective effort involving many stakeholders.

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Develop a Plan

Refine your direction by creating a strategic plan to meet your goals. For example, if reducing the divorce rate is your goal, one strategy to obtain this could be to increase the proportion of couples that obtain pre-marital education. Your action items to achieve this could be to lobby or introduce a bill that will decrease marriage licensing fees for participants. Action items should be concise and measurable so you can track progress and ensure efforts can be continued and built upon.

Go to What Policymakers Should Know for legislative language, survey instruments, reports, handbooks, and brochures.

Ways Policymakers Championed a Healthy Marriage Intiative…And Succeeded:

New Policies

  • Create incentives for couples to receive pre-marital preparation, like reduced fees for marriage licenses.
  • Require the distribution of information resources to couples when they apply for a marriage license or when they have a baby.
  • Create a commission or task force to study the issues that affect healthy marriage in your state or locality.
  • Draft a covenant marriage law.
  • Direct state agencies to develop internal policies or initiatives that support healthy marriage.
  • Generate initiatives that offer relationship services to unmarried couples.
  • Request the creation of a resource center or on-line portal of information.

Program Funding

  • Expand the availability of marriage education services by funding service providers.
  • Offer marriage education services for free or for a reduced cost.
  • Sponsor a study or survey to learn more about attitudes and beliefs on marriage in your community.
  • Construct a Marriage Education Fund comprised of court fees to support marriage services.

Awareness

  • Support the creation of community healthy marriage initiatives at a grass-roots level.
  • Call for a healthy marriage awareness day, award event or recognition ceremony.
  • Build a public awareness campaign on the benefits of healthy marriage.
  • Produce information resources that communicate tips for having healthy marriages and sustained relationships.
  • Be the image or voice of public service announcements that call awareness to healthy marriage.
  • Lend your support to existing marriage initiatives by attending their events or participating in events when asked.
  • Write newspaper articles or editorials highlighting the importance of healthy marriage.
  • Develop relationships with local media outlets to ensure fair coverage of your efforts.
  • Sponsor a town-hall meeting or similar event to create awareness of your efforts and create buy-in for your efforts.

Current Policy Evaluation

  • Review existing tax laws to ensure there are no "marriage penalties."
  • Evaluate welfare and child support laws to ensure there are no penalties for getting married.
  • Revise data collection requirements for local offices of vital statistics so that accurate marriage and divorce data is available in your jurisdiction.

Community Partnerships

  • Partner with the faith community to promote and sustain healthy marriages
  • Build on teen pregnancy prevention or abstinence programs to include relationship skills
  • Add relationship skills or marriage education to life skills curriculums in secondary schools

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Stay Connected!

Participate in an advisory committee (or the like) to monitor changes so you can ensure that the initiative is going in the appropriate direction.. Implementation is rarely as easy as originally thought and communication between policymakers and front line workers is essential. Staying connected also gives you the opportunity to recognize any unintended consequences resulting from your initiative as they occur so they can be addressed immediately.

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