Springer Series on Couples and Health W. Kim Halford Jemima Petch Debra Creedy Clinical Guide to Helping New Parents The Couple CARE for Parents Program Springer Series on Couples and Health A cross a long life together most couples face at least one signifi cant health chal- lenge, and negotiate multiple life transitions that can impact on their health. The central theme of this book series is that the couple relationship is a central infl uence on health, both physical and mental health. Partner interactions are so crucial that, in essence, couples conjointly cope with major stress. This conjoint coping can be positive and benefi cial or negative and harmful . There is now clear evidence that if health professionals work with couples, and help them conjointly to manage life stresses, it can meaningfully enhance health outcomes. The Couples and Health book series is intended to service the needs of professionals who work with couples, but who may not have expertise in working on health related issues. It guides professionals in the best evidence-based approaches to help couples better their relationships so that the relationship can become a buffer against stressful health and life events. This includes books focused on couples in which on spouse has a specifi c chronic health problem, and on books focused on couples making life transitions that are associated with health. While there is overlap among the books in terms of relationship enhancement material, each book provides unique health or event content pertaining to each title. This series is intended to assist busy clinicians incorporate into their clincial practice the best available evidence on working with couples working within diffi cult circumstances. We hope you will regularly turn to the books in the series on your e-reader or book shelf when planning a client session and fi nd useful information. If that happens then we have achieved what we set out to do. W. Kim Halford and Tamara G. Sher Series Co-editors More information about this series at h ttp://www.springer.com/series/11191 W. Kim Halford • Jemima Petch • Debra Creedy Clinical Guide to Helping New Parents The Couple CARE for Parents Program W. Kim Halford Jemima Petch The University of Queensland Relationships Australia St. Lucia , QLD , Australia Brisbane , QLD , Australia Debra Creedy Griffi th University Gold Coast , QLD , Australia Springer Series on Couples and Health ISBN 978-1-4939-1612-2 ISBN 978-1-4939-1613-9 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-4939-1613-9 Library of Congress Control Number: 2015933614 Springer New York Heidelberg Dordrecht London © Springer Science+Business Media New York 2015 T his work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifi cally the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfi lms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. T he use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specifi c statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. T he publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. Printed on acid-free paper S pringer Science+Business Media LLC New York is part of Springer Science+Business Media (www.springer.com) I dedicate this book to my wonderful wife Barbara, who made the transition to parenthood with me all those years ago, and with whom I made the transition to grandparenthood as this book was being written. WKH. To my husband and two beautiful boys. Together we have shared thousands of joyful moments—smiles and laughter I will never forget. JP. Parenthood can be hard but also a joy. To my husband Mark and my children Ben, Alison and Joe—you have made me stronger, better, and more fulfi lled than I could have ever imagined. DKC. Pref ace In this book, we present an evidence-based approach to relationship and infant care education for couples having a child together. The program is called Couple CARE for Parents (CPP), and is intended to assist couples to sustain and strengthen their relationship as they become parents. CCP is distinctive from couple therapy. CCP is focused on relationship enhance- ment, relationship commitment, and prevention of relationship distress. CCP uses the positive feelings of the partners as a resource to build momentum for positive change as they adapt to parenthood. CCP also includes education and skill building to assist partners to support each other, and parent their baby in a sensitive and responsive manner. In contrast, couple therapy is focused on the treatment of exist- ing relationship distress. Couple therapy necessarily deals with resolving longstand- ing grievances, negative thoughts, and feelings about the relationship. CCP is most commonly provided in a mixed delivery format. In the antenatal period, which is when we recommend starting CCP, we offer couples a one-day face-to-face workshop. We fi nd couples often appreciate the chance to share experi- ences with other expectant couples. Subsequent to that workshop we usually offer CCP as a mixture of home visits and fl exible delivery. Flexible delivery is built around self-directed learning materials (such as online materials, printed work- sheets, and instructional DVDs) that couples complete at home, usually with telephone-b ased or Internet-based support from a health professional. The home visit and fl exible delivery are intended to make CCP easy to access. At the same time, different contexts and health delivery systems might make other program delivery formats more appropriate. This book describes CCP in the usual format in which we deliver it, but also describes how different formats can be used to provide CCP to couples. T his book has eight chapters. The fi rst chapter briefl y analyzes the most relevant research on what infl uences couple adjustment as they become parents, and what approaches to couple relationship education are most effective to assist new parents. Chapters 2 – 8 describe the units that make up CPP. There are descriptions of content vii viii Preface areas to be covered, and specifi c couple and group exercises are presented. The book includes suggestions about how the content and process of CCP can be tailored to meet unique couple needs. W e aim to make the book useful to practitioners. There are boxed sections called Practice Tips that provide very specifi c suggestion on how to enhance the effective- ness of sessions with couples. We also have all the clinical handouts included in the book available as handouts that can be downloaded from the Springer link web site for this book at h ttp://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-1-4939-1613-9 . The effective delivery of the program also draws upon the personal experience and knowledge of you the reader. In order to prompt thinking on how your personal experiences might be used in delivering CPP, we have included boxed sections called Clinical Connections. In these boxes, we pose questions that we plan to stim- ulate refl ection on how your personal experiences might be drawn on in program delivery. We hope that our writing captures the blend of applied science and com- passionate practice that we think characterizes good couple relationship education. St. Lucia, QLD, Australia W. Kim Halford Brisbane, QLD, Australia Jemima Petch Gold Coast, QLD, Australia Debra K. Creedy Acknowledgements We are very grateful to Dr. Jenny Gamble, who is a valued colleague and worked with us in conducting the large randomized control trial of Couple Care for Parents. Jenny has invaluable experience and wisdom in perinatal care, and her contributions to the training and supervision of our nurse-midwife educators in that trial were of great importance to fi ne-tuning the program. We also thank Joanne Fisher, Teresa Walsh, Corinne Mawn, Leesa Cunningham, Melinda Bentley, Jacqui Hudson, Alison Brennan, Lianne Schwartz, and Di Tamariki for their work as the nurse–mid- wife relationship educators in our research, their professionalism and skills helped to make the program effective. We also have a debt of thanks to Charles Farrugia, Vivian Jarrett, and Christopher Pepping for all their help with data collection on our research trials. Finally, we gratefully acknowledge the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia grant 326321 “A randomized controlled trial of a couple-based program for the transition to parenthood” to W. Kim Halford and Debra Creedy that supported some of our research on Couple CARE for Parents. ix