People Who...

"Just a note to thank you guys for the work that you are doing with the Oklahoma Marriage Initiative. I believe it will do wonders, not only for the clients I serve daily, but for thousands of Oklahomans. When I first heard about the OMI, I thought "Oh no, here we go again. One more way to get involved in people's lives." But after attending Tier II training, I have changed my mind. I see the use of PREP being very beneficial to a lot of people. I am hoping that I can convince my clients to attend these workshops, as I believe it will help them greatly. Not only will they be able to relate to their significant others better, but everyone they have relationships with. I hope our county team can become greatly involved and make this great service available to the people of Caddo County."

"Early on the Oklahoma Coalition Against Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault decided to support the OMI. Primarily we knew the initiative would happen with or without our participation and knowing that OMI professionals would surely come across we felt it imperative that they at least have an introduction to domestic violence and available resources. We wanted victims' voices to be heard.

But about three weeks ago I had an epiphany.

I sit on the Oklahoma Domestic Violence Fatality Review Board. I am a founding member and currently service as vice-chair. Each month the DVFRB meets to investigate domestic violence homicides and have a particular interest in intimate partner homicides. At our last meeting we reviewed four cases, of which three were young couples who had children together. As we looked in depth at the victims and murders we saw that each individual came from a family of origin that did not model healthy relationships. The mother of one of the young women did not even travel up from Texas when her pregnant daughter was reported missing. As I read and then discussed the situation involving one murder/suicide, two homicides in which the father of the victim's child is doing prison time, the death of a fetus, and the lives of three small children left behind, I realized that if these six individuals had had the benefit of PREP or similar training, most likely all the dead would be living, neither of these young men would be in prison and the small children would have been living with their moms. It felt so tragic, so wasteful, so needless."

"It makes no difference what color you are, it makes no difference how much money you make, it makes no difference if you are on some kind of government assistance. You want to have good relationships. You want to have a good marriage. You want to have time to spend with your children so that they can have - and this is the bottom line - a good life. The Oklahoma Marriage Initiative has given us a tool to help us to make our homes, our communities, our cities, our state and our nation a better place to live. What you have to do is go share this with others. Because some folks have forgotten that marriage is a good and just institution."

"For a subject about which most of us has an opinion or an anecdote from personal experience, it is remarkable how much is known, but unused, in understanding how to make better marriage choices, to strengthen existing marriages, to cope with stress and reduce conflict, and to avoid divorce. We believe that marriage success can be learned, and that there are tools available that will help couples communicate effectively, resolve conflict constructively and handle other problems that, if unchecked, can lead to divorce."