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Coaching Studies

Since 1995, South Hills Church of Christ in Abilene Texas has offered a premarital mentoring program based on PREPARE/ENRICH. About 320 premarital couples were mentored by 35 different married couples. Only 4 out of 320 couples have divorced (success rate of 99%) and between 15 - 20% (about 60 couples) of the couples canceled their wedding plans. Another positive outcome of mentoring was that the mentor couple marriages also improved in the process of working with pre-marital couples.[i]

Another study found that 86% of participants either strongly agreed (59%) or agreed (27%) that the utilization of mentor couples was a valuable and effective component of the pre-marital program. Nearly 91% of pre-marital participants indicated that interacting with their mentor couple provided them with a more realistic view of marriage and fostered their relating to each other in more positive ways. Approximately 80% of the premarital participants reported that their mentor couple effectively modeled how to resolve relational conflicts and helped them identify issues they had not previously discussed.[ii]

In the case of challenged couples, sixty married couples took the ENRICH inventory and were divided into three groups: mentors who had strong marriages, challenged couples who wanted to be mentored, and a control group. The marriage mentors were trained on the PREPARE / ENRICH Program. The Mentor couples had a “Vitalized” marriage and were paired with another distressed couple who had a “Conflicted” or “Devitalized” marriage. Pre and post-testing using ENRICH demonstrated significant improvements in the distressed couples. No change was made in the 22 couples in the Control group. Even though the Mentor couples were classified on ENRICH as having the highest quality of marriage, they still improved their marriage significantly on six major areas. Results demonstrate that mentor couples also strengthen their own relationship as they positively impact the marriages of the couples with whom they work.[iii]

Mentoring results are also well documented by Mike McManus on his website and the following captures some of the key results that he has compiled. The Institute for Research and Evaluation conducted a study entitled Assessing the Impact of Community Marriage Policies (CMPs) on U.S. County Divorce Rates. The Institute examined the impact of 114 Community Marriage Policies (CMPs) in 122 counties that were signed by 2000. The Institute developed two ways to evaluate the results with a before and after comparison and CMP counties vs. comparison counties and found that divorces fell by 17.5% over a decade in counties with a Marriage Savers program or almost twice the 9% of comparable counties without. This resulted in a conservative estimate 31,000 saved marriages with estimates as high as 50,000 given the total number of 186 CMPs.[iv]

Steve Weed, the author of the study, said, "The results are important, not because of their magnitude, which is modest, but because there are any results at all." The deck was stacked against finding a program effect. Community Marriage Policies depend on local volunteers [mentors] of varying degrees of motivation, commitment and ability and with high turnover. Given that serious training of mentor couples only began in 1998, finding a significant program effect is actually pretty surprising. Diane Sollee, Director of Smart Marriages, and the former Associate Director of the American Association of Marriage and Family Therapy, told reporters, "I come out of what I call the therapy industry. As therapy grew in power and acceptance in 60s 70s and 80s, we took marriage away from congregations and the community. Sophisticated clergy persons knew that if a couple is having trouble, they should refer them out to the experts. This research shows how important it is to put marriages back into the churches and the communities who can take better care of them."[iv]

The key to these results has been mentor couples and a program that focuses on mentoring interventions at all phases from pre-marital up to and including divorce.