Marriage Leaders Head to Dallas to Urge FamilyCorps Initiative

Doctors Lori and Morris Gordon, pioneers of the marriage education movement, are calling on state and national leaders to create a FamilyCorps coalition to restore community to neighborhoods and families. The Gordons are traveling to the eighth annual Smart Marriages and Happy Families conference in Dallas this week to urge 200 leaders of the marriage movement and an expected 2,000 delegates to join their call to launch FamilyCorps for America (www.familycorps.org).

Dallas, TX (PRWEB) July 1, 2004 -- Two national marriage leaders say the greatest threat to America is the breakdown of the family and its devastating consequences on more than one million U.S. children annually. Doctors Lori and Morris Gordon are heading for the eighth annual Smart Marriages (CMFCE) conference in Dallas Tuesday to urge 200 other national leaders, state and federal officials to support their initiative to create a FamilyCorps coalition for America.

"FamilyCorps is about returning community to our neighborhoods and families," said Dr. Lori Gordon, founder and president of the non-profit PAIRS marriage education organization (www.familycorps.org). "Children, couples and families are worse off today then anytime in the past fifty years," Gordon said. "The foundation of America is being ripped apart by economic and employment shifts, health care, education, military, and a host of other national policies that are deeply hurting children and families. FamilyCorps is a national alliance to fight for the future of America. The frontlines are right here."

Patrick Fagan, an analyst for the Washington based Heritage Foundation, agreed. In recent testimony before a U.S. Senate committee, Fagan said, "In 1950 for every hundred children born, 12 entered a broken family - four were born out of wedlock and eight suffered the divorce of their parents. By the year 2000 that number had risen five fold and for every 100 children born 60 entered a broken family: 33 born out of wedlock and 27 suffering the divorce of their parents. We must conclude that over the last fifty years America has changed from being preponderantly 'a culture of belonging to now being 'a culture of rejection.'"

Rabbi Morris Gordon, a highly decorated World War II military chaplain, is the co-founder and chairman of PAIRS. He said FamilyCorps will harness the collective resources required to help children and their parents throughout America. "I have a dream that as a result of FamilyCorps every youngster in America will one day learn relationship skills with equal passion as they today pursue lessons in reading, writing and arithmetic. One day every couple will not only fall in love and want to keep their love alive, they will also have practical, usable training in the skills that we now know are key to creating successful marriages that provide a lifetime of family connection and happiness. As someone who has served our nation at home and abroad for more than a half century, I fervently believe theres no greater contribution we can make to the future peace and prosperity of America and the world."

At the Dallas Smart Marriages conference, the Gordons and other PAIRS leaders will help train, support and network with more than 2,000 participants gathered from every state in the country and much of the world. The conference is sponsored annually by CMFCE, the Coalition for Couples, Marriage and Family Education. Diane Sollee, a former director of the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy (AAMFT), is the group's founder and director.

Established in 1984, the mission of PAIRS is to teach those attitudes, emotional understandings and behaviors that nurture and sustain healthy relationships and to make this knowledge broadly available on behalf of a safer, saner, more loving world. Over the past 20 years, the Gordons have trained more than 1,000 professionals who have delivered their marriage education, parenting, and relationship skills seminars to tens of thousands worldwide.

Dr. Lori Gordon is the author of more than a dozen books and widely acclaimed training programs, including PAIRS, Passage to Intimacy, If You Really Loved Me, Love Knots, PAIRS Mastery Course, PAIRS for Christian Marriage, Prepairs: A Guide for Catholic Marriage, Prepairs: A Guide for Jewish Marriage, PAIRS for PEERS, and, together with Seth Eisenberg, TEAMS Training for organizational development and highly effective workgroups.

For more information, visit www.familycorps.org or contact Eisenberg Communications, (954) 389-2296 or (877) 411-5437, or by e-mail to SDEisenberg@aol.com .

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