Program Director of
Operation Us, Dr. Jennifer Baker, PsyD, and Executive Vice President of
ADsmith Communications, Celeste Skidmore, recently attended the
Media Sector Summit: Marriage Media Campaigns held at the Winshape Retreat in Rome, Ga., on October 14-16. This important conference was hosted by the National Healthy Marriage Resource Center (NHMRC) and the Marriage CoMission, with the purpose to build on cutting-edge national research on twenty-somethings in order to brainstorm strategies for national public interest campaigns on marriage, including the National Healthy Marriage Resource Center's (NHMRC) national media campaign.
At a national summit in May 2007, the NHMRC determined the need for a national media campaign focused on the goal of launching a national conversation about marriage. The Media Sector Summit was held to share research from Chicago-based TRU (Teenage Research Unlimited) regarding the attitudes towards marriage of 18-30 year olds. The thirty-eight participants in the Media Sector Summit included leading researchers in the study of marriage, youth and relationships; representatives from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Administration for Children and Families; marriage educators; marketers specializing in marriage media; along with the NHMRC and Marriage CoMission leadership teams.
The Media Sector Summit participants were asked to help determine the focus and message of a new public service communications campaign. When the campaign message is developed and materials are produced, they will be disseminated to media outlets nationwide (television, radio, Web, newspaper, magazine, out-of home, and alternative media).
In October 2006, Forest Institute of Professional Psychology received a five year, $5.2 million grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Administration for Children and Families to provide healthy marriage/healthy relationship education for persons in a 29 county area of southwest Missouri. Named Operation Us, the program's target groups include 1) high school students, 2) engaged couples, couples in serious dating relationships, and persons interested in marriage, 3) unwed expectant mothers and fathers, 4) married couples, and 5) couples at risk for divorce. ADsmith Communications is one of two primary partners of the Operation Us grant.
For more information on
Operation Us, click
HERE.