Table Of ContentSpringer 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
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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
