Love Notes

We Can’t Wait! Helping Youth Love Smart, Love Safe…and Rebuild the Story of Marriage
Marline Pearson, MA
We can't wait until they have their 1st (or 2nd) child, or are ready to come as a couple. Target
youth 16-24 at risk for unplanned pregnancy and single parenting (or already pregnant or
parenting) to engage them (especially males) on healthy relationships, sexual meaning &
choices, and an approach to pregnancy prevention that builds on the importance of fathers and married parents in the lives of their children. $100 spouse discount.   

Learn to teach Love Notes (Spanish and English), a flexible activity-based program designed for youth age 16-24 who are at risk for unplanned pregnancy, single parenting, and troubled relationships (and those already pregnant or parenting). Love Notes empowers young people with skills and knowledge to move towards forming healthy and meaningful relationships in those critical years when  attitudes and behaviors about relationships and sex take root.  Its use of activities with realistic and gritty scenarios, drawing, sculpting, role-playing, stories, poetry, music and film engages and improves decision-making about partners, sex, pregnancy, and other interpersonal challenges.

Love Notes with its unique approach to pregnancy prevention taps new sources of motivation while it uniquely rebuilds the story of marriage and the importance of fathers in successful family formation for a generation losing those connections. 

Love Notes 2-Day Instructor Training – Pre-Conference Institute equips you to:

·        Help young people learn more about themselves and define personal aspirations.

·        Engage youth (especially young males) on healthy relationships—to know what they are and are not; to make decisions rather than just slide into sex-too-soon and babies-too-soon.

·        Offer youth guides to assess their relationships, recognize unhealthy relationships and for how to respond to dangerous relationships.

·        Teach a critical package of communication and conflict management skills adapted into activities from PREP®.

·        Engage youth on issues of the heart, sexual meaning and values; encourage youth to make decisions rather than just slide into sex-too-soon and babies-too-soon; motivate them to plan for their choices.

·        Help young people become deeply aware of how unplanned pregnancy affect a child: how troubled parental relationships can feel to a children and how having a child before finishing school and being married can compromise a child’s future.

Plus, discussions with experts on how to integrate Love Notes into existing programs and how to partner with grant managers to introduce and teach Love Notes to young adults and young parents.

Love Notes is currently being used in Youth Build sites across the U.S., thanks to a grant from the Anne E. Casey Foundation. In addition, it is being used in Job Corps, Head Start, teen parent programs, with older foster youth, and youth in community colleges with promising results.

Love Notes draws from two programs that Marline Pearson authored and co-authored respectively— Love U2®: Relationship Smarts PLUS (for teens) and Within MY Reach(for adult age singles/single parents) which she co-authored with Scott Stanley and Galena Rhoades and is published by PREP®,.

Relationship Smarts PLUS is in the final year of a 5 year large scale evaluation among 5,000 diverse teens in Alabama conducted by researchers at Auburn University. Within My Reach draws on over 28 years of relationship/marital research at the University of Denver. It has been, and continues to be, evaluated with promising results

Who Should Attend?
Everyone working with older teens, young adults, and youthful first-time parents. Specifically those who work in:

·      youth development,

·      workforce development,

·      juvenile justice,

·      pregnant and parenting teens,

·      Head Start and early childhood education,

·      pregnancy prevention programs,

·      young mothers/young fathers programs,

·      groups homes,

·      residential programs,

·      Title X Family Planning Nurses,

·      home visiting nurses or outreach staff to young first time parents, and

·      two year college teachers/staff

will find concepts, activities, skills to teach and resources to use in this Institute.

What Will I Be Able to Do?
You will be able to improve the lives of vulnerable young people and their children, by helping them get smart about their love lives. You can use this material in your current program such as schools, afterschool programs, workforce development, Head Start, and youth agency settings. You can introduce this valuable area of instruction to educational leaders and community organizers in your region. You will be able to partner with youth  and young adult serving agencies on grant applications to provide relationship skills classes as a team member.

Participants will receive the core materials needed to teach the program:

One Instructor’s Guide (464 pgs) with 15 complete lessons, activity cards, handouts, and adult connection activities

One participant workbook (48 pgs, color)

One personality test,

Four full color posters

Other essential materials such as CD with PowerPoints and  DVD and The Art of Loving Well  are NOT included in the training fee and must be purchased separately.

What Others Say: 

Janet Pozmantier, ChildBuilders, Houston TX, says:

ChildBuilders recently received a grant to reach Head Start children, teachers, and parents with our programs.  Just about the same time we were notified our proposal was funded, a special package arrived at our office.  Inside was copy of the new Love Notes curriculum, which we eagerly read from first to last page.

As soon as we read Love Notes, we knew it would be more appropriate for this population.  We consulted with our contacts at the Head Start provider organizations, who also reviewed the curriculum and agreed 100%. 

We then gave the curriculum to several parents to review for cultural and linguistic fit, and here are some of the responses the parents gave to our questions:

Do you think this program will be helpful for Early Head Start/Head Start parents?   Why?

“Yes, because it teaches people what to look for in a relationship and what to expect.”

“This lesson will help us to break some cycles, wrong choices in dating, trouble in serial relationships, baby mama drama.  I think it would be helpful for someone in a dangerous relationship.”

Do you think this curriculum is useful for people from your culture?

“I think it would be good for any culture because everyone needs a healthy relationship.” 

And best of all:  “I think it could be helpful to the world.”

Click for a comprehensive overview of the Love Notes program.

For more information about Love Notes contact:

The Dibble Institute

RelationshipSkills@DibbleInstitute.org

www.DibbleInstitute.org

1-800-695-7975

This institute is part of the week-long Smart Marriages conference.

Conference Details Page to download a conference brochure, Register ONLINE, hotel & travel information & discounts, etc.