Marriage Preparation:  Portsmouth

The Portsmouth Marriage Care Centre looks after Marriage Preparation for three deaneries: Portsmouth, Havant and Fareham. The two first deaneries, almost invariably, use our services whilst in Fareham the Sacred Heart Parish has its own team and the other parishes use our offering.

We offer the FOCCUS programme based on a tool developed by Sr. Barbara Markey in the USA; we have been operating this programme for four years now with 243 couples having completed the programme. The programme entails couples completing what is called an inventory, they respond to a series of statements about aspects of their relationship and we than meet to discuss issues identified by our analysis of their responses.

Up to the end of September this year we had 66 couples go through the programme, which is somewhat higher than we normally handle. The reason behind this increase is that many couples now are able to make the wedding arrangements at fairly short notice (It's also true to say that sometimes Marriage Preparation is forgotten until the PP reminds the couple) and when they try to book in for the normal courses in their area they are fully booked or there is not a course running before their wedding date. This year we have had about ten couples from London, four from Reading, one from Windsor, several from Southampton. A significant number of couples we see get married overseas and, generally, they need to have their Marriage Preparation completed before they can get a confirmation from an overseas parish about wedding dates.

We have just launched a Marriage Support programme which is being available to all couples we have seen this year. This will consist of three stages: Reflection on their Marriage Preparation experience (about four months after they complete MP), a Marriage Mentoring programme linking them to a mentoring couple about two years after their wedding and finally an opportunity to become mentors themselves.

Although the FOCCUS version we use is the catholic edition the Marriage Support programme we are launching is non faith based as 75% or greater of our couples are of mixed faith background and most couples acknowledge that their faith does not play an strong part in their lives. 95% of our couples have said they are interested in some form of follow up with a few asking for this before we offer it.

This year, I have handled the Marriage Preparation programme entirely on my own except for when I was abroad early in the year. All our counsellors are trained in FOCCUS and they occasionally use it in their counselling work.

We administer our programme by offering dates each month (except August) for the first stage (completing the inventory); we also offer couples the possibility of completing the inventory via the internet (this is specially useful to couples form outside our area). Follow up dates are arranged to suit couple's and our diaries as best as possible although we try to avoid weekends but this is sometimes impossible when couples have to travel.

David Chiswell 

Contact

Gerald Johnson
42 Westfield Avenue
Hayling Island P011 9AG

Tel: 023 92 463989

Email: oakmead@ ntlworld.com