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        This practical re/marriage-prep course differs in important ways from four other courses for stepfamily co-parents. They are:

• Drs. Emily and John Visher's pioneering lay and Christian course Stepping Together,

• the 8-part Stepfamily Association of America (SAA) course Stepfamilies Stepping Ahead, by Mala Burt, Patricia Papernow, and the Vishers; and...

• Rev. Ron Deal's Christian audio/church course Building a Successful Stepfamily; and...

• The multi-media "Smart Steps" course (2002). This 12-hour research-based, educational program is for remarried or partnering couples and their children, and focuses on building couple and family strengths. The program uses informational presentations, hands-on exercises, group discussions, and several different media. The 250+ page Curriculum includes leader lesson-guides for adult and child programs, background readings, hand-out masters, a resource list, pre/post evaluation questionnaires, two videos (the movie "Stepmom" and "Smart Steps Video Vignettes"), and a CD with PowerPoint slides, hand-out files, and evaluation questionnaires. Order this from the National Stepfamily Resource Center (NSRC) for $150.00 + postage.

       Two useful pre-remarriage resources are not compared here because they're couple strength-and-stressor evaluations, not courses: 

Life Innovations' Prepare Enrich MC (married with children), and... 

FOCCUS - (Facilitating Open Couple Communications, Understanding, & Study)

However, the differences below apply to their content span as well.

Course Goal and Content Differences

        Based on 29 years' research, this Break the Cycle! course is specifically for courting co-parents, and aims to prevent re/divorce. Re/married couples can still benefit from it if they made three wise re/wedding choices. The other four courses are primarily for couples who have already  re/married. After reviewing these courses, I find that none of them focus with any depth, as this course does, on raising couples' awareness on...

• Five widespread re/marital hazards;  and...
   

• Seven courtship Projects to help make informed re/marital choices. These seven include:

  Assessing for and healing psychological wounds from childhood (Project 1).  This work depends in part on co-parents intentionally developing their non-denominational spiritual  awareness, and encouraging it in their kids; and...

  Building seven specific communication skills based on reduced wounds (Project 2).  A unique feature of this Project is encouraging co-parents to dig down below surface (secondary) problems to identify and fill the primary needs "beneath" them...

  Affirming your stepfamily identity and what it means, and teaching this to unaware kin and supporters (Project 3); and...

  Converting up to 60 common stepfamily myths into realistic role and relationship expectations, and teaching others about these (Project 4); and...

  Learning healthy-grieving basics, assessing adults and kids for blocked grief, freeing any you find; and evolving a stepfamily pro-grief "policy." (Project 5); and...

  Drafting a stepfamily mission statement as the basis for (a) building a co-parenting team,  and drafting co-parent job descriptions to clarify responsibilities and reduce caregiving conflicts (Project 6);  and...

  Each courting partner using their knowledge from the six prior Projects to assess whether s/he is re/marrying the right people (partner + any kids, ex mates, and kin); at the right time, for the right reasons. (Project 7).
   

• This Break the Cycle! course alerts couples to five more Projects they need to help each other with if they re/marry. The other courses don't differentiate these five projects as fully or at all. This course will help average co-parents learn to "pass" these four vital quizzes.  

        Bottom line: all five courses aim to strengthen stepfamily relationships via a series of facilitated interactive sessions. They emphasize different topics, and vary significantly on content specifics. This  course "goes deeper" than the others, and is the only one with many Internet links to an evolving array of related worksheets, articles, and other resources. Most of these are now integrated in a series six guidebooks.

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Updated September 12, 2008