Who we are
Marriage Care is a charity operating across England and Wales. Its purpose is to help people prepare for, achieve and sustain successful marriages and to support them should their marriages break down.
When we began
The charity was established in 1946 as the Catholic Marriage Advisory Council (CMAC), in a bold move to relieve the pressure on family relationships that began to surface in the aftermath of the Second World War. Half a century on, the world has changed dramatically but the need for marriage support remains as urgent now as it was then.
With more than fifty years’ experience of being alongside people at all stages of development in their marriages and developing family relationships, the organisation has acquired a specific expertise in couple work. In 1995 the organisation changed its name to Marriage Care to better describe its desire to serve the whole community.
A unique aspect of Marriage Care is a counselling service without charge. The reasons for this are historical and rooted in the organisation’s faith base. Counsellors provide their services free, leaving the organisation to cover training, accommodation and other variable costs. Clients are encouraged to make donations towards the cost of the service but no one is turned away on the grounds of inability to pay.
The charity was established in 1946 as the Catholic Marriage Advisory Council (CMAC), in a bold move to relieve the pressure on family relationships that began to surface in the aftermath of the Second World War. Half a century on, the world has changed dramatically but the need for marriage support remains as urgent now as it was then.
With more than fifty years’ experience of being alongside people at all stages of development in their marriages and developing family relationships, the organisation has acquired a specific expertise in couple work. In 1995 the organisation changed its name to Marriage Care to better describe its desire to serve the whole community.
A unique aspect of Marriage Care is a counselling service without charge. The reasons for this are historical and rooted in the organisation’s faith base. Counsellors provide their services free, leaving the organisation to cover training, accommodation and other variable costs. Clients are encouraged to make donations towards the cost of the service but no one is turned away on the grounds of inability to pay.
What we stand for
The charity defines its vision and mission, respectively as follows:
The charity defines its vision and mission, respectively as follows:
- “Marriage Care embraces and holds true to the Church’s vision of marriage as a vocation of love, with the power to transform individual lives and to serve as a bedrock to a stable society.”
- “Marriage Care supports people in the best and worst of times in their marriages and family relationships.”
