Beech Acres Parenting Center Receives $2.75M Grant

Beech Acres Parenting Center has been awarded a Healthy Marriages Demonstration Grant from the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) and the Office of Family Assistance (OFA) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to pilot a marriage-strengthening program in three diverse communities: Bond Hill/Roselawn, Forest Park and the southwest section of Clermont County. Beech Acres Parenting Center and its partners will receive $550,000 a year for the next five years to implement the grant. 

As part of its emphasis on increasing awareness of the value of marriage, Beech Acres Parenting Center is offering a workshop, “Keep Your Love Alive: How Busy Parents Can Have a Happy Marriage,” in its eighth annual For the Love of Kids Parenting Conference on Saturday, Oct. 21, at Duke Energy Center, downtown.

In its first federal grant, Beech Acres Parenting Center has created a program to increase awareness of the value of marriage and encourage people who choose marriage or committed cohabitation to strengthen their relationships.  As an organization whose purpose is strengthening families for children, its goal is to improve the quality of parenting children receive by developing the relationship between their parents. 

The Beech Acres Parenting Center program fully engages the target communities, giving them the opportunity to tailor the specific programs and services to address and respond to their local needs, issues and concerns.  The program will allocate $115,000 of the grant to each target community for a variety of programs and services including:

·         Classes and presentations for couples, individuals and high school students on a variety of topics and issues relating to marriage and relationships such as communication, domestic violence, relationship building, concept of marriage, effects of cohabitation,  and choosing a partner;

·         Support groups:

·         Couples coaching;

·         Individual, couples and family counseling;

·         Mediation services; and

·         Couples mentoring.

For nearly 20 years, Beech Acres has mediated divorces with the goal of mitigating the negative effects of spousal dissolution on a family’s children.  This grant helps us move upstream by teaching skills to married or otherwise committed couples.  By strengthening the relationship between parents, Beech Acres aims to provide more children with a stable environment in which to grow.

Strong marriages are a building block to healthy families. Each year more than 40,000 children in Ohio are impacted by divorce. The Ohio Network of Healthy Marriages reports that Ohio has experienced a steady decline in the marriage rate. Unfortunately, there is not a similar decline in the divorce rate. In 2003, Hamilton County had a divorce rate of 49.3 percent, with 47.5 percent of those divorces involving children. 

To help fight these alarming trends, Beech Acres Parenting Center created the Building Strong Marriages & Families Coalition of Southwest Ohio in January 2006 to build the capacity of local agencies to strengthen marriages and relationships and promote marriage awareness in Hamilton County.  Funded this spring through a contract from the Ohio’s Strengthening Families Initiative (OSFI), the Coalition is currently providing programs and services to begin to address the overwhelming need in Southwest Ohio.

Jim Mason, president and CEO of Beech Acres Parenting Center, stated: “We are very excited about the opportunity to build upon the current work of Beech Acres Parenting Center and the Coalition through our OSFI program, as well as expand our ability to assist parents, children, families and communities in building their own networks of support.”  

Beech Acres Parenting Center has been serving at-risk children and families in Greater Cincinnati since 1849.  With a mission of strengthening families for children, Beech Acres Parenting Center programs and services are based on the principle that all parents, or other dedicated adults, want the best for their children, and all can benefit from information, support and guidance in raising children to reach their unique potential.