1. Engaging Values & Attitudes
- New programs should have a strong connection with present training process and content, which has shown to have a strong impact on promoting healthy family systems.
- Specifically, new programs should build on strengths of impacting values and attitudes, especially lessons about power and identity. Training should help participants cultivate deeper understandings of positive models of power and how they apply to family life.
- Gender roles and stereotypes should be specifically addressed, but the topic should be approached in a nonjudgmental, exploratory fashion.
2. Including All the Members of the Family
- While it is often not practical for training and services to be provided to multi-generational participants, training and services can be provided with an awareness of the needs of everyone in the family. New programs should explore ways to encourage transformation for whole families - and not just participants who are able to attend training.
- The social/political structure suggests that equipping village chiefs and members of commune councils with knowledge, attitudes, and skills relevant to family conflicts/violence would be highly beneficial.
- Because children are typically overlooked, providing resources and training related to parenting/nurturing children could also be a very fruitful way to transform family relationships.
3. Keeping the Family Together
- The social and cultural value of keeping a family together, even at great cost, is both a strength and a weakness. The great value is the motivation and commitment that families may bring to transforming family conflict, provided they have the willingness to acknowledge the issues. The great risk is that families will tolerate destructive patterns in the family relationships.
- It may be common for families and third parties to fail to understand basic concepts of family violence or the reconciliation process. New programs should help participants look deeply at their own family habits of reconciliation and construct culturally appropriate models that honor everyone involved, protect basic rights, and is founded on a solid understanding of family violence issues.
- The case studies also illustrated situations in which basic peace education had limited effect. These complicated family dynamics are ones that many peacebuilders will interact with, if not in their own families then in other families in their communities. They include: chronic abusive situations (including life-threatening ones), addictions, and trauma healing. Building on the value that healthy families ask for help when they need it, new programs should cultivate knowledge and attitudes about these limitations, as well as help peacebuilders create networks and referral systems.
4. Enlarging the Possibilities
- Peace Bridges' network of community peacebuilders provides the opportunity to extend impacts by integrating peace education into other programs addressing family conflict and violence. Peace Bridges should work strategically to identify, equip, and mobilize key partners working in these areas.
- New programs should also include helping partners and Peace Bridges see new and creative ways to heal family conflict and promote healthy family systems. This type of integration could also help overcome the limitations listed above (e.g., chronic abuse, addictions, and trauma).
- Acknowledging that religious ideas and institutions often have a significant function in Cambodian families, more attention should be given to how religious community-based help structures can support healthy family systems. However, this should also be done with an awareness of the ambiguous nature of religious beliefs and institutions. It calls for more investigation into important questions about: What religious content regarding family life is being taught? How can religious belief be used to support healthy family systems? How open are religious communities to content from other settings (e.g., other Cambodian cultural resources or insights from psychosocial researchers and clinicians)?
