FOCCUS (Facilitating Open Couple Communication, Understanding, and Study) is a premarital inventory that provides the structure so that an engaged couple can safely discuss concerns or disagreements with each other in areas that will impact their relationship. These areas include: life-style expectations, friends and interests, personality match, personal issues, communication, problem-solving, religion and values, parenting, extended family, sexuality, finances, readiness issues, and marriage covenant. It also includes categories for unique situations like remarriage, cohabiting couples, and interfaith marriages. FOCCUS is a tool to help couples discuss and work through issues before marriage.

FOCCUS is used by both professionals and by trained lay mentor couples as part of the premarital preparation provided by counseling centers, or by churches. Typically, churches that use FOCCUS train lay mentor couples (couples whose marriages are strong and who have been married usually at least ten years) to work with engaged couples. The mentoring takes place in the mentor couple's home where the engaged are given the inventory, and in usually five subsequent meetings, go over the results of the inventory. As part of the process, the engaged couples are taught some communication skills, and are given homework assignments relating to marital preparation.

In most churches the pastor still meets with the couple a few times, but most of the premarital preparation takes place through the use of the FOCCUS inventory. In most cases, the use of the inventory with trained mentor couples provides a much more complete preparation than what most pastors have the time to do themselves. The engaged couple agrees that the mentor couple is responsible to the pastor and is to inform the pastor concerning any potential areas of concern, areas that the

pastor and the engaged couple may then discuss and work through. The use of mentor couples greatly expands and enriches the premarital preparation.

The first step would be to identify couples in the church who have strong marriages and who, it would seem, would work well with engaged couples. It is best to hand pick the mentor couples rather than announcing it as a ministry open to any couple.

The second step would be to ask these couples if they would like to be trained to help prepare engaged couples for marriage. It is recommended that mentor couples only mentor one or two engaged couples per year.

The third step involves the training itself. This training is done by a couple who have been trained to train others and who have started a marriage mentoring program in their own church and have themselves mentored numerous engaged couples.

The fourth step involves assigning an engaged couple to the mentor couple. This is done by the pastor or by the person in charge of the mentoring program in the church. The mentor couple then contacts the engaged couple to set up their first session.

The only cost for the training is for the FOCCUS materials and includes the FOCCUS manual, a mentor's manual, and a REFOCCUS inventory (similar to FOCCUS but for married couples). The cost is approximately $105 per mentor couple. Typically the church pays for and owns the material, providing it to the mentor couple when they are assigned an engaged couple to work with.

Contact Larry Compter at the Marriage Alliance of Central Virginia to reserve a seat at the next training. Call 434-455-2117 or email marriagealliance@verizon.net.