Amanda Lambros is a renowned thought leader on relationships, relationship development and consumer engagement and is a wonderful addition to the MAREAA Executive. Combining current consumer insights with research into relationships, engagement and delivering organisations and individuals powerful strategies for connecting with their customers both present and future, Amanda has the skills and background to contribute and advocate for the ongoing growth and provision for early intervention and prevention programs in Australia.

As a change agent, Amanda is recognised as an entertaining speaker and has presented at over 300 conferences in 11 countries, combining practical strategies with an impressive storytelling style, Amanda leaves audiences with memorable messages and actionable insights. With an educational background in Health Sciences and Ethics, Amanda has a Masters Degrees in both Forensic Sexology and Counselling. She has consulted to some of the country’s largest brands, including various Universities, SERCO, Rio Tinto, Telstra, Brookfield Multiplex, Toyota and MercyCare.

“MAREAA has a great tradition and history in supporting relationship educators and influencing the public agenda and with such a diverse background, we are fortunate to have Amanda on the executive, adding to the tremendous knowledge and experience within the leadership team. I thank Amanda for her continued support”, Shane said.

Welcome and thankyou Amanda for accepting this position.

Yours Sincerely,
Shane Smith
National President, Marriage and Relationship Educators Association of Australia (MAREAA)
Director, Relationship Educator and Mediator
PREPARE/ENRICH Australia

Amanda Lambros
BHSc., Dip Ethics, MSForensicSexol., MACouns.
Clinical Counsellor & Supervisor
Member, Professional Speakers of Australia (PSA)
Relationship & Grief & Loss Expert | Educator | Speaker

MAREAA welcomes the new Minister for Social Services, the Hon. Dan Tehan, MP who will be supported in his role by the Hon. Jane Prentice as Assistant Minister for Social Services and Disability Services and the Hon. Dr David Gillespie, MP who will step into the newly created role of Assistant Minister for Children and Families’, announced this week as part of the Turnbull Governments Ministerial restructure.

As outlined in the ‘Strengthening prevention and early intervention services for families into the future’ report (Toumbourou, J. et al (2017)), “a great and relatively untapped opportunity exists in the sector to have a far more integral role in identifying risk factors in the lives of the children, families and communities with whom we work, enabling us to contribute to a more holistic service delivery response.” With the existing policy investment slanted to working with disadvantaged populations and with families that are already experiencing problems, MAREAA along with the authors believe there is great potential for cost effectiveness and efficiency in investing in prevention and early intervention services across a range of health risks, consistent with the objectives of national initiatives for women, children and families.

MAREAA looks forward to continuing to work with Government and the newly appointed Minister and Assistant Ministers to ensure that we are all working to achieve the best outcomes for children, families and communities into the future.

We bid farewell and extend our gratitude to the Hon. Christian Porter, as he assumes his new position as Attorney-General of Australia.

Reference:

• Toumbourou, J., Hartman, D., Field, K., Jeffery, R., Brady, J., Heaton, A., Ghayour-Minaie, M., & Heerde, J. (2017). Strengthening prevention and early intervention services for families into the future. Deakin University and FRSA; https://frsa.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/FRSA-Research-Report-Printable.pdf

Denise Lacey
MAREAA National President

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This award recognises outstanding or exceptional service or contribution to marriage and relationship education.  Recipients may be an individual, team, or program.

Fiona began her Relationship Ed career/apprenticeship at Anglicare in the early 90’s.and  in 2000 she joined Western Australia Relationships Australia after completing her degree. She has been passionate about relationship education and its benefits for couples, individuals and families and as such over the years has developed a number of very successful programs. These include Relationship Education for couples (pre marriage), Prepare-Enrich, 8 week program for couples “Building Better Relationships” based on John Gottman work; weekend programs for couples and single session programs that responded to need. She established Step Family programs, Parenting Programs, Men’s Anger Management Programs and programs for those leaving a relationship.

She has always believed that for relationship education to work you need in depth well trained, and supported facilitators. If you have highly skilled facilitators, then the groups run well. She has challenged the concepts of people not wanting to attend groups and that men won’t come. Her testimony to this is that WARA has a wonderful legacy of well-oiled programs grown over the years that are always full.

In 2010 she also challenged the state training body to establish a CERT IV in Relationship Education and then conducted this for 5 years. It was the only official Rel Ed training program in Australia.

She has served on the National MAREAA Exec, been on both state and national conference committees (indeed she is on the current one) and has been a driver of MAREAA WA state activities.

She has recently retired but her passion for relationship education will live on at RA and is a model for the rest of Australia.

Congratulations Fiona.

Dear MAREAA members and friends,

For many of us this is a busy time of year, finishing off our work, planning for 2018, thinking of ordering the turkey and what to buy grandma, attending the work Christmas party, thanking everyone for their great work during the year. Hunting for the special white t shirt for daughter’s present (how many white T shirts can there be?!) and remembering to breathe, be grateful and certainly don’t forget to order the champas and pick up other daughter from airport on time!

This could sound like a bad news story but it is not.

The other day I was in a kitchen shop and a lady began talking to me and telling me that she is over her family at Christmas and doesn’t want to buy them gifts, would rather buy for friends and in fact is going to be with friends on Christmas day. On this same day, I was peacefully having a coffee when I heard several people at next table saying how Christmas is such a burden as everyone has to be nice to each other for one day a year.

This sounds like a bad news story and it is.

For our Christmas, we have always invited anyone who would like to share our day and as a result we have had some very rich and amazing experiences. Our children are now well and truly adults (and we have beautiful grandkids) but the tradition lives on and usually one or two of them have invited some people that they know are on their own. Our Christmases are always richer for these invitations. We have had hitch hikers from Denmark, Sweden and USA, very distant relatives about 20 times removed who were on their own (they are still coming, now with their daughter), an elderly couple from nearby, a farmer down the road, neighbours, relatives of the relatives of the neighbours and so on.

Everyone gets a present (small!) and a seat at the table/s (decorated in red and green of course). People bring food, and it is noisy and chaotic and there is nothing chic or glam about it all but it is lots of fun. We celebrate many things: our good fortune to have the opportunity to be surrounded by good people; our love for family and friends and the home we have to share. These are the best gifts of all.

Christmas is a time of celebration, whether through a particular faith or recognising the importance of gathering together to celebrate family and friendship.  However, the common message should always be peace and goodwill to all. This message is not too distant to the work we do in Relationship Education. MAREAA wants all couples, families and individuals in all their diversity to have healthy, growing and happy relationships. We want people to be part of the good news story, especially at Christmas.

I wish for all MAREAA members, friends and families a happy, safe, enjoyable Christmas celebrated with your families and friends and perhaps even a few strangers!

Denise Lacey
MAREAA National President

Last year I reported that the MAREAA Executive had been working hard to continue to advocate for Marriage and Relationship Education in Australia.  This has become increasingly challenging as early intervention and prevention was certainly not on the Federal Government agenda. We had had several unsuccessful attempts to gain some funding for a National Conference in the previous 2 years.

In the 2016 Presidents Report I said “watch this space!” and yes, we were successful in receiving funding!

DSS Minister, Christian Porter agreed to fund MAREAA this year $20,000 to help seed MARENC 2017. We are very grateful to Minister Porter for this.

I would also like to thank FRSA Board, Jackie Brady FRSA Executive Officer and Amanda Carter, Administration Supervisor.  We have really appreciated the collaboration, the generous support, encouragement and good will provided to MAREAA and the National Executive.

The National Executive goals needed to be put aside during 2017. However, the overall goals: Building Membership, Supporting Members, Raising the Profile of MRE are all intrinsic to the goal of conducting a National Conference.

We have achieved this goal with a lot of energy, positivity, hard work and a few little dramas along the way. A badly functioning (new) website in the year of the National Conference has been one of those ‘dramas’. We have had 12 months of negotiation with some limited degree of success. I am very grateful to Michael O’Keeffe, Web manager and Treasurer and Shane Smith, Vice President, for their continual efforts to resolve this serious problem.

I thank all MAREAA members and possible members for your patience and support over this time.

We hope to move into 2018 with a fully functioning, easy to manage website for all members who can easily advertise their services. We also want couples and individuals to be able to find a service near them. Hopefully this is not too far away.

It is with great delight that MAREAA has again had the opportunity to present the Award for Excellence. It is not often that those working in prevention and early intervention programs gain some recognition for the work that they do. I congratulate this year’s recipient.

This will be my last report as President and while I will still be on the Executive, I would like to take this opportunity to thank all the Executive for their continued, on-going and generous support plus the friendship and fun we had at our “Zoom” meetings.  We have all had a big and at times, stressful year but I am confident 2018 will be the year of consolidation and growth.

I would particularly like to thank Rebecca Lowe, secretary, who I would not be able to do without, Shane Smith and Michael O’Keeffe for their patience with my many texts, emails and phone calls.

I also encourage all those working in the early intervention and prevention space to continue doing what you do so well and to use MAREAA for advocacy, support, promotion and networking.

MAREAA looks forward with optimism and enthusiasm to new adventures and challenges in 2018.

Denise Lacey

MAREAA National President

Dear MAREAA members and friends,

2017 is an exciting year for MAREAA as we prepare for the Marriage and Relationship Educators National Conference, MARENC. This will be held in collaboration with FRSA on 22 and 23 November at the Melbourne Exhibition and Convention Centre.

The Executive and conference committees have been working very hard to put together an exciting, innovative and fun program with great networking and learning opportunities. The program is looking fantastic and is nearly ready to be published.

However, we are having some very real difficulties with our new website. This website was launched earlier in the year in preparation for the conference but unfortunately we are having some challenges with the company involved. However, we will not be deterred!!! Didn’t some famous general say something similar?!

On a couple of previous National Conferences in Melbourne we have dealt with Ansett collapse 5 days out from conference and also the hotel hot water system breaking down……cold showers for every one for 2 days! Like all good educators we managed these unforeseen difficulties with skill, talent and a little bit of humour. So now we have this difficulty also so we are asking you to bear with us as we try to resolve the issues, with a little bit of skill, talent and a very occasional bit of humour.

You can certainly book for the conference on the website as the bookings are being managed by our contracted conference company. However, paying membership is a problem. You have a couple of choices. You can pay your membership as part of the conference fee. Simply visit our Conference Website and click on the options to join MAREAA.

If you are currently simply looking to join as a MAREAA member, you can email admin@psc.edu.au/mareaa_wp and we will give you directions on how to proceed while we are waiting for our website to get up and running.

We are hoping all will be resolved by next week (otherwise our very best relationship education skills may be out the window and some Arnold Schwarznegger moves may have to be employed!)

I ask you to please be patient with us while these problems are being resolved. In the meantime please look at conference program and check regularly for updates.

I hope to meet you in November at our fantastic, friendly conference: Voices In The Family, Children, Men and Women.

Denise Lacey

MAREAA National President

At last months Annual General Meeting, the membership voted on introducing Organisational Membership. This will allow Marriage and Relationship providers to register all their employees as members of MAREAA.

How Organisational Membership would work?

Membership would be based on the (total) size of the organisation (i.e. number of educators that work at the organisation).

The voting rights are based on the size of the membership i.e. number of votes at the AGM or special meetings permitted per organisational membership size.
Each organisation will only nominate one contact person; however to attend Professional Development, the organisation can send the total ‘paid for’ educators for an organisational membership PD discounted rate. For example, for the smallest membership category, up to 3 educators can attend a MAREAA PD event at a discounted organisational membership rate. Any attendees over pay the full PD fee.

This will roll out on our new website which is coming in October. If you are currently a member you will have an opportunity to upgrade or transfer your membership over to Organisational Membership.