Overview of Center Services

Worksite Seminars on Work/Life Balance

Worksite-based seminars developed by the Center for Work and the Family are intensive training seminars. Their goals are:

    • to increase understanding of work/life stress
    • to improve communication and coping skills; and
    • to teach problem solving
    • to further a dialogue about work/life issues between employees and employers.

Trainings are available in two formats; for employees and or for employees and their partners (spouses or significant other). Following daylong seminars, feedback to management is provided by a written summary and/or feedback briefing.

Training For Employees

    Balancing Your Work and Personal Life
    This introductory noontime seminar provides an overview and helps assess employee interest in additional in-depth programs on work/life balance.

    Coping Skills For Managing Work/Life Stress
    This is a daylong seminar focussing on stress management skills. Topics include increasing resistance to stress, identifying needs, communicating effectively, setting realistic expectations, clarifying goals and priorities, setting limits, dealing with guilt, and making hard choices.

    Communication And Negotiation Skills For Work and Home

This one-day seminar can be geared to employees only or to couples. Principles of effective communication are applied to the specific kinds of conflict situations which arise at work and at home. Topics include gender communication, dealing with strong emotions, and learning and practicing the principles of interest-based problem solving.

    Parenting Support For Working Parents
    A parenting expert provides a variety of services at the workplace through brown bag topic-focussed workshops, on-going parent support groups (Families That Work), and parenting consultation.

Training Seminars For Employees and Their Partners

    Professional Lives/Personal Lives: Finding A Balance Together
    A Saturday seminar for employees and their spouses, this seminar helps couples become more effective partners in dealing with their responsibilities at work and at home. Participants consistently express appreciation that employers recognize the challenges facing dual career couples and provide them with support and training in communicating needs, coping with stress, sustaining intimacy and negotiating shared roles.

    Coming and Going: Business Travel And Family Life
    This day-long Saturday seminar helps couples address the impact of frequent business travel on couple relationships and family life. Topics include necessary strategies for successful coping, psychological factors which need to be addressed by the partners, maintaining contact while apart, dealing with emergencies, and all the important stages of a business trip for the traveler and the non-traveling partner.

    Communication And Negotiation Skills For Work And Home
    This seminar is designed for couples. Principles of effective communication are applied to the specific kinds of conflict situations which arise at work and at home. Topics include gender communication, dealing with strong emotions, and dealing with difficult people, and learning and practicing the principles of interest-based problem solving.

    Planning Our Lives Together: A Planning Retreat For Couples
    A weekend retreat offers valued employees and their partners a chance to step back from the pressures of daily life and think about the "big picture." Structured couple activities enable participants to evaluate current levels of satisfaction, identify long-term professional and personal goals, and jointly develop an action plan for collaborating in achieving shared goals.

All Seminars Can Be Customized to Meet Your Company’s Needs

Individual, Couple and Community Services

    Individual and Couple Counseling
    In the San Francisco Bay Area, psychotherapist and marital counselor, Leah Fisher, provides individual and couple counseling. She can be reached at (925) 258-5400.

    Parenting Consultation and Work/Life Coaching
    In the Washington, D.C. area or by e-mail, Co-Director Chris Essex provides practical and successful interventions for working parents. She also does individual work/life balance consultation and coaching. She can be reached at (301) 309-0870.

    Weekend Planning Retreats for Couples
    These weekend retreats are currently offered in the San Francisco Bay Area by the Center. They can also be organized in your community for your organization, group or business. Click to Weekend Retreats For Couples.

Additional Services at the Workplace

    • Focus Groups
    • Management Training on Work/Life Balance
For Further Information, Please Contact:

The Center For Work And The Family
In Maryland at 301-309-0870
In California at (925) 258-5400
Email: cwfseminar@aol.com

©1999 The Center for Work and the Family