For Immediate Release
Date: May 18, 2007

Rockville, MD - Celebrating Families!™, a successful, evidence-based curriculum that addresses the needs of children and parents in families that have serious problems with alcohol and other drugs, has been acquired by the National Association for Children of Alcoholics (NACoA) from the California-based Family Resources International, Inc. NACoA will produce and distribute the curriculum. Training and technical assistance for its implementation will also be available from NACoA.

The curriculum engages every member of the family to foster the development of healthy and addiction-free individuals and families by increasing resiliency factors and decreasing risk factors. It incorporates addiction recovery concepts with healthy family-living skills, specifically targeting children of alcoholics/addicts and parents in early recovery. This highly interactive, fully scripted curriculum was developed by Rosemary Tisch and Linda Sibley for families involved with Santa Clara County, CA Family Treatment Drug Court and has been successfully replicated and tested in multiple sites elsewhere in California and other states.

According to Stephanie Brown, Ph.D., Director of The Addictions Institute in Menlo Park CA, “Celebrating Families! ™ is richly layered on a solid base of research, practical experience and evaluation. This is a curriculum that works!” Karol L. Kumpfer, Ph.D., noted researcher and evaluator for the “2006 Outcomes Evaluation” for Celebrating Families! replication sites, writes "Celebrating Families!™ is an excellent family skills training program for parents in early recovery. It draws on the recovery principles of Alcoholics Anonymous and concepts taught in the children of alcoholics/addicts and social skills training literature. The program supports healing and promotes safety for children of substance abusers.”

Judge Leonard Edwards (previously Supervisory Judge for the Santa Clara County Juvenile Dependency Court and President of the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges) states "Our juvenile dependency court has been using Celebrating Families!™ for our substance abusing parents for several years with great success. It is the only program I can recall in which parents consistently report their satisfaction and that produces positive results for the family."

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The National Association for Children of Alcoholics is a national membership and affiliate organization whose mission is “to advocate for all children and families affected by alcoholism and other drug dependencies.” It is an Internal Revenue Service approved 501 (c) 3 non-profit Corporation founded in 1983.

11426 Rockville Pike, Suite 301
Rockville, MD 20852
www.nacoa.org