Building A Healthy Relationship
– © 2004 by Andrea Ferstan, Training and Education Coordinator, Chrysalis

Building a Healthy Relationship: A Class for Couples is a collaboration between The Men's Center and Chrysalis. When I was first approached by someone from The Men's Center about collaborating on an educational group for couples, I was both excited and wary. First there were questions as to what this collaboration would look like. Would this be solely for heterosexual couples? Who would facilitate? Would partners attend the group together? If not, what would be the necessary commonalities between the two groups? Like all relationships, making this collaboration work, required a great deal of communication, risk taking, time, respect, and willingness to change and adapt as needed. Other factors that proved to be important were that we shared similar agency philosophies and beliefs regarding the structure of educational groups and the role of facilitators.