4 - (SYM 15) Engaging Military and First-responder Couples in Relationship Education

Current literature indicates that divorce rates tend to be higher among military personnel and emergency responder couples. For example, divorce among women who serve as firefighters across the United States more than triples that of the general population (Haddock et al., 2016). Furthermore, divorce is more common among military personnel and lower proportions of women in the military are still in their first marriage than women who are not serving (Adler-Baeder et al., 2006). Thus, there is a need to support military and emergency responders’ relationships to mitigate the negative impacts of their jobs. Some work suggests that follow-up sessions designed to reinforce and build upon the skills and knowledge learned during the initial relationship education program may help maintain program gains (e.g., Hahlweg & Richter, 2010; Cordova et al., 2014). Therefore, the current study focuses on the effects of booster training.

This study enrolled 735 couples (all of whom included at least one partner who was an active-duty military member, veteran, or emergency responder) and compared couples randomly assigned to receive a relationship education workshop only (n = 367) to those assigned to receive the workshop and subsequent virtual practice prompts (n = 368). The workshop used 12 hours of the REAL Essentials Respond curriculum created and delivered by a local community organization in Colorado for the population. All couples received the workshop in an evening-followed-by-weekend format. The booster group also received seven virtual practice prompts after the workshop. Focus groups and individual interviews were conducted with a subset of participants (n = 14) to further understand participants’ experiences and opinions on the program and the virtual practice prompts.

Most participants in both groups received a high dosage of programming, and those assigned to receive virtual practice prompts demonstrated high engagement with them. Both groups demonstrated statistically significant change in communication skills (Cohen’s d [d] = .53), relationship satisfaction (d =.15), and destructive conflict (d = -.37). There were no significant differences on these variables across the two intervention groups. Taken together, these findings suggest that involving military and first responder couples in community-based relationship education can be a promising approach to strengthening their relationships. The virtual practice prompts, on the other hand, while described as helpful by participants, did not significantly impact outcomes.