Within Our Reach 8 Hours
Within Our Reach 8 Hours is a curriculum from PREP® developed to help low-income couples achieve their goals in marriage, family, and other key relationships. The curriculum is designed to build on the existing strengths of couples and add critical life and relationship skills that will help participants create safer, more stable couple relationships, and by extension, better environments for children.
Various studies demonstrate that the aspirations for marriage among those who are economically disadvantaged are as high or, in many cases, higher than in other populations. However, the research is also clear that those at the lower end of the economic scale have a greater difficulty becoming and remaining married.
The content was directly influenced by the implications of new research on fragile families and low income couples. This literature informs Within Our Reach 8 Hours by identifying issues that place low-income couples at higher risk for relationship difficulties as well as significant barriers to marriage and marital success. But we have also learned that the approach and skills of Within Our Reach 8 Hours work well in a variety of settings not solely focused on fragile families.
Through extensive contact, interviews, and piloting in ethnically and financially diverse communities, the Within Our Reach 8 Hours team has worked to make the curriculum as accessible and practical as possible for participants from a variety of communities. Over 1000 instructors and 15000 couples have been trained in WOR. A great deal of feedback has been (and continues to be) elicited from low income families as well as from those who work extensively with them. Along with the insight gained from empirical scientific research, these practical sources of input are part of a process of ongoing development and refinement resulting in a curriculum that is relevant, sensitive, and flexible.
Within Our Reach 8 Hours is similar to PREP in that it is a cognitive-behavioral curriculum, meaning the focus is helping couples to identify thoughts and behaviors that are associated with the likelihood of success in marriage. As such, Within Our Reach 8 Hours has a strong skill base, rooted in research on how couples communicate and handle conflict. Like PREP, Within Our Reach 8 Hours includes a core focus on three key types of safety (physical, emotional, and commitment) that characterize stable and satisfying marriages.
This innovative curriculum also includes several new emphases. It is a strengths-based approach; a central aim of Within Our Reach 8 Hours is to help couples identify and overcome the barriers to meeting their goals by drawing on the positive qualities they share. Personal responsibility and self-knowledge are encouraged. Further emphasis is placed on topics such as commitment, expectations, and the maintenance of a strong positive relationship (through friendship, fun, and partner support).
The format for the presentation of Within Our Reach 8 Hours is structured, yet flexible and couple-centered. Compared to PREP, there is less lecture-style teaching and more emphasis on engaging couples with activities and skills practice in order to better support multiple learning styles, increase connections among group members, maintain attention, and maintain pacing. Facilitators receive detailed, easy-to-follow written materials, high-quality videos, and a toolkit of engaging training strategies. The supporting materials were designed to provide facilitators with clear guidelines regarding core concepts and material, and the flexibility to meet the needs of diverse populations and settings.
Modifications from Existing PREP Model
Process and Flow
· Lecture content from basic PREP is reduced and lectures broken up in much smaller pieces, interspersed with group activities, exercises for couples, and skills practice
· Emphasis on stress management techniques
· Many more group and couple activities that are high energy and meaningful and serve to teach principles and key themes
· Some emphasis on homework, but measured to what is reasonable and what a particular site is able to do in this way with its clients
· Global themes and specific customized themes
· Participants cover core concepts, but also have the flexibility to apply our knowledge base to situations that are most relevant for them
Instructor Facilitation
· The full curriculum (including all instructor and participant materials) is available in both English and Spanish
· Scripts are provided for facilitators as examples of “how you can say it” (as in Within My Reach)
· More activities designed to engage participants and teach core themes and competencies
· More movement between types of teaching styles
· New videos with more content, including skill-based video and also video designed to help focus teaching of concepts and focus discussions
This institute is part of the week-long Smart Marriages conference.
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