UK Marriage Preparation

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Bristol Community Family Trust

BCFT is a non-profit charity focused on the prevention of family breakdown.

BCFT have been running marriage, relationship and mentoring courses since 1996, currently for around 1,000 people a year in Bristol. Insight is for couples who are engaged, recently married, or just thinking about it. Courses run every month, for couples getting married or newlywed, and include a day of PREP skills training in the classroom followed by 3-6 private evenings going through the FOCCUS questionnaire with a mentor couple.

BCFT also runs courses every month to train mentors. Mentors are ordinary non-expert married couples who want to make a difference. Couples getting married can suggest their own friends as mentors or accept mentors provided by BCFT.

http://www.2-in-2-1.co.uk/services/bcft/

Care for the Family

Care for the Family is a national charity which aims to promote strong family life. The charity runs three different marriage preparation courses:

21st Century Marriage – an eight-session, DVD based course which couples may find particularly relevant if they have already been living together for some time.

The Marriage Preparation Course – which runs over five evenings in local areas. This course is based on Christian principles, but is designed to be suitable for anyone, regardless of faith background.

From this step forward – this unique marriage preparation course will help you to build a strong relationship on which to build your stepfamily. Couples can use this CD-ROM course at home with or without the help of a facilitator.

http://www.careforthefamily.org.uk/

FOCCUS Questionnaire

FOCCUS is a research-based diagnostic pre-marital inventory [with independent UK research to support its efficacy] designed to help engaged couples learn more about themselves and their unique relationship.

It is a tool which has helped more than 20,000 people in England and Wales to identify, work through, understand and communicate openly about their expectations and challenges.

Couples have the opportunity to discuss the results with a trained support couple or facilitator.

The programme can either be used by itself through a local facilitator, or one of the HTB/Alpha Marriage Preparation Courses or with other courses, such as BCFT’s.

The cost of taking the FOCCUS questionnaire online is £10. Sample questions for Internet or mobiles are free.

http://www.affinities.org.uk/#foccus

Marriage Care

Marriage Care is a charity operating across England and Wales, from 54 Centres, with 80 counselling locations. Volunteers are mainly though not exclusively drawn from within the Catholic community. Couples can attend a group course or choose to complete the FOCCUS Inventory which is designed for use with individual couples.

http://www.marriagecare.org.uk/

The Marriage Preparation Course

The Marriage Preparation Course is part of Alpha and whilst the course is based on Christian principles, it is designed for all couples with or without a church background. You do not need to be getting married in a church to come on the course. The course takes place over five evenings and covers communication, commitment, resolving conflict, keeping love alive and shared goals and values.

All participants are required to complete the FOCCUS questionnaire before the course which is a self-diagnostic inventory designed to help you learn more about yourselves and your relationship.

http://relationshipcentral.org/marriage-preparation-course

Prepare and Enrich Programme

The Prepare Enrich programme helps couples prepare for marriage or enrich their relationship by taking stock of their strengths and weaknesses. With the help of trained practitioners they develop skills which are key to any relationship.

Couples complete an inventory which is then scored by the Prepare and Enrich office. The scoring process compares the couple’s responses to each other, and highlights strengths and growth areas. A report is returned to a practitioner for use in the three or more feedback sessions. The couple receives a “Building a Strong Marriage Workbook” containing useful information and suggestions, and opportunities to complete the couple exercise

http://www.prepare-enrich.co.uk/

Relate

Relate deliver advice, relationship counselling, sex therapy, workshops, mediation, consultations and support face to face, by or via website

‘Couples Workshop’ – these courses are for couples about to make a commitment be it getting married, moving in together or having a baby.

‘Together’ courses – these are for lesbian or gay couples thinking of making a new commitment to each other like moving in together or a civil partnership.

http://www.relate.org.uk/takecharge/workshopsforcouples/

The Church of England Wedding

Preparing for Marriage  – Even if you have already been living together for some time, you are still two separate individuals with different backgrounds, personalities, experiences, hopes and fears. You’ll never make such big promises to each other as the day you make your wedding vows.

http://www.yourchurchwedding.org/youre-welcome/preparing-for-marriage.aspx