Giving couples a good start

Almost every family in our country has been affected by marriage breakdown. That’s why Care for the Family is part of The National Couple Support Network (NCSN), which aims to offer marriage preparation to every couple getting married in the UK.

You can make a difference – by supporting couples in the early years of marriage.

Before telling you a bit about The National Couple Support Network and how you can get involved, let’s look at some facts and stats on marriage.

Marriage – the facts

• 85% of UK couples are married (2001 National Consensus)
• More than 95% of women and 91% of men will have married at least once by the age of 49 in the UK (United Nations report)
• 74% of people think that being married is the most desirable way to live (Mori poll)
• 9 out of 10 teenagers under 16 say they ‘want to tie the knot one day’ (Bliss magazine poll of 5,000 teens)
• The UK has the highest divorce rate in Europe (Office of National Statistics)
• There were over 300,000 marriages in the UK last year – over two thirds were ‘civil ceremonies’ (Office of National Statistics)
  

All you need to know about The National Couple Support Network (NCSN)

• The NCSN aims to offer marriage preparation to every engaged couple getting married in the UK.
• All engaged couples have to contact their local church or register office to make the legal arrangements for their wedding. And it’s at this stage that a NCSN co-ordinator gets in touch with the couple to offer them marriage preparation.
• The NCSN is a partnership between Care for the Family and the Family Life Department of Alpha International, working with the National Association of Community Family Trusts.
  

How you can get involved

• Church leaders and registrars can contact The NCSN to receive help in offering marriage preparation to the couples you marry.
• We hope to appoint a NCSN co-ordinator in each locality. They will work with the register office and churches in their area, offering marriage preparation to engaged couples. Could you become a co-ordinator?
• We are also looking for people to become support couples. These couples will offer encouragement from their own experiences of married life, and be mentors to the engaged couple.

Please feel free to email me, Katharine Hill, at NCSN@cff.org.uk or phone me on (029) 2081 0800 to find out more about becoming a support couple or local co-ordinator.

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