LGBT Families: Seeking Social Recognition and the 1,138 Benefits that Come With It
March 10, 2015
Hosted by Virginia L. Colin, Ph.D.
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Guest Information
Episode Description
LGBT families are a growing part of the evolving family landscape, yet they still must continually negotiate for limited resources while working to legitimize their families. With the Supreme Court set to decide this summer on the question of marriage equality, perhaps the 1,138 benefits afforded married couples will help ease many LGBT families’ struggles. Along with the social recognition of legalized marriage may come other help to LGBT families, including domestic violence support, clear rights for LGBT elders and their partners, and safe haven for LGBT youth. We will discuss Dr. Mezey’s new book, LGBT Families, which is based on exhaustive research on the challenges for these families and the many benefits their well-being offers to society overall.
Family Matters
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Our goal is to share good ideas about helping all kinds of families handle the challenges and problems that are common in today’s world. We seek to help people heal, grow, and thrive in a culture in which marriage, parenting, and other family relationships are under great stress.
We will feature experts on a variety of family matters. Topics may include building and maintaining healthy relationships, family mediation, divorcing with minimal damage, strengthening marriages, LGBT families, forming and maintaining stepfamilies, single parents, creating constructive separation agreements, addiction, preventing or ending abuse, and other Family Matters.
Virginia L. Colin, Ph.D.
Virginia L. Colin, Ph.D is an author, speaker, professional family mediator, Director of Colin Family Mediation Group, and a Founding Member of the Academy of Professional Family Mediators (APFM).
Having survived a nightmarish divorce, Dr. Colin actively supports divorce reform efforts, teaching people how to take a lot of the pain, financial cost, acrimony, and trauma out of divorce. She also loves learning and teaching about building healthy relationships and solving family problems long before anyone has a reason to consider divorce. She has been a foster parent, a married parent, a divorced single parent, and a remarried stepparent.
Formerly a research psychologist studying attachment and other aspects of human development, Dr. Colin has been providing family mediation services since 1999. She specializes in helping couples and ex-couples develop co-parenting plans and financial agreements that support their children’s security, self-confidence, and healthy development as well as their own adult well-being.
Dr. Colin has published two books, “Human Attachment" and "The Guide to Low-Cost Divorce in Virginia: How to Do It Yourself.” She has also written a variety of articles published in journals and on the Internet.
