Family Focus

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Our website is meant to inform that we offer educational  workshops and programs that provide education, knowledge, skills training and insight relating to personal issues that affect us as individuals, couples and families.

Some of the major issues we are confronted with today include, high rates of divorce, drug/alcohol addiction, murder, crime, unemployment, lack of housing, lack of service delivery, abuse of women and children, poverty, high cost of living, etc. 

Family Focus focuses on new couple formations and premarital preparation providing the relevant skills, knowledge, insight, interpretation and understanding into the dynamics of such relationships and assisting in positive transitional changes from single to committed couple relationships believing that such training reduces the negative effects of such transitions that ultimately lead to divorce and separation.

Long gone are the days when couples accommodated others perspectives, when couples were truly intimate and passionately in-love, where hopes and dreams were common, responsibilities shared and roles negotiated. Why do we become more intolerant, self centered, destructive and stressed after entering into a long term committed relationship?  How come we turn so easily to drugs and alcohol or opt to exit out of a marriage after the first few arguments? Does a commitment to a relationships also translate into the acquisition of another combat zone?

Our course  acknowledges the tremendous influence of multiple interactions  towards successful couple relationships while at the same time we acknowledge that people are autonomous individuals capable of free thought and independent choices that also determine relationship success.

Generally, premarital courses/workshops can be presented from either a religious (usually by religious leaders) or religiously neutral perspectives depending on the educational orientation of the facilitator. We  focus on the latter. Also, our workshops should be not be confused with therapy sessions.

Our  Focus:

In response to the high divorce rate, Family Focus offers a course in Couple formation and Marriage Preparation which focuses amongst others things on discussion and skills development relating to Relationships and Communication. Some of our workshop objectives are:

•     overcoming problematic issues with less conflict and fewer emotions outbursts.

•     increasing understanding and therefore responding with greater insight.

•     increasing the ability to predict problems and potential difficulties and negotiating some of these.

•     increasing ability  to control anger 

•     equipping with conflict management skills.

•     developing specific personal skills and habits and getting a holistic view of relationships.

•     learning communication skills

We are aware that as families we are exposed to a tremendous amount of stressors. Every member is influenced differently and everyone responds differently. Besides the changing norms, political climate,  social realities, violence, ignorance, illness, racism, natural disasters, etc that contribute to this family pressure, the new union between two separate individuals from  two different families adds to these challenges.

Other pages on this website provide a little more detailed information about the workshops on offer. Browse through and feel free to provide feedback in the space provided on the 'contact us / feedback' page. 

Notwithstanding our other qualifications, Zarina is completing her Masters degree in Social Work at the University of the Western Cape, I, Ridwaan, hold a Bachelors degree in  Psychological Counselling from the University of South Africa while Chantal holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology from the University of Cape Town. All of us are actively involved with non governmental organisations that address a wide range of community issues. 

At Family Focus we argue that dysfunctional families suffer from dysfunctional communication patterns, (Bateson et al. 1956), family members try to change their personalities instead of changing their communication patterns (Satir et al. 1991), address one another in ways that belittle each other (Berne, 1961), and where the amount of negative interactions far outnumber the positive ones.

The foundations of our workshops are therefore based on equipping new couple members with the skills and communication training based on what successful couples do and on establishing positive dialog during times of problematic interaction.

Our new couple formation program  thus strongly adheres to the "Communication school" of thought in its approach to arguing for solutions to new couple and family problems.

Our aim and purpose is to guide new couples to create suitable environments in which to raise human beings.