Smart Steps: Embrace the Journey
Visit our web store to purchase the Smart Steps kit for $199.00.

Are You Looking for a Program for Stepfamilies?

This 6-session research-based educational curriculum written by Dr. Francesca Adler-Baeder is designed for remarried or partnering couples and their children. It focuses on building couple and family strengths while addressing the unique needs and issues that face couples in stepfamilies.

Children and adults attend parallel sessions, coming together at the end for a shared activity.

The program uses informational presentations, group discussion, and a multi-media approach to teach strategies for building healthy relationships and stable stepfamilies.

Smart Steps for Stepfamilies Addresses These Topics:

  • Stepfamily myths
  • Realistic expectations for adults and children
  • Stages of stepfamily development
  • Legal issues
  • Finances
  • Defining roles and rules
  • Developing empathy
  • Understanding child development
  • Stepparent-stepchild relationships
  • Communication with your child’s other parent
  • Building respectful and caring relationships

You Get Everything You Need for $199 (Plus Shipping & Handling)

  • Leader’s guides for the adult and child programs
  • Background material for each lesson
  • Masters so that you can reproduce all handouts
  • An extensive resource list
  • Pre/post evaluation questionnaires
  • 1 DVD/CD – “Smart Steps Video clips”
  • USB flash drive containing all power point slides, hand-outs, and evaluation questionnaire

Growing in Wisdom: Christian Supplement to Smart Steps - $40

The Growing in Wisdom supplemental guide written by Ron L. Deal provides an additional 60 pages of content that integrates Christian principles and scripture into the Smart Steps material. This is the only Christian research-based material available that educates adults and children.

The Growing in Wisdom Curriculum includes:

  • 60 pages of additional leader lesson guides, fully coordinated with the Smart Steps curriculum.
  • Additional handouts.

Ron L. Deal is President of Successful Stepfamilies, a Christian ministry to stepfamilies and the churches who serve them. He is author of the book The Smart Stepfamily: Seven Steps to a Healthy Family and many other video and resource publications. He is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, Licensed Professional Counselor, and served as the first Stepfamily Educational Consultant to Focus on the Family.

Have questions about Smart Steps or Growing in Wisdom?

We're happy to help. Visit our Contact Us page to get in touch.

Smart Steps Evaluation Research Findings

A summary of the findings are available as a PDF. Click here to download it.

Selected Comments from Class Participants in Utah

I thought it was great. We learned about how many people are part of a stepfamily, one way or another. You don’t need to feel like you’re messed up and kind of an outcast from society.
American Indian male, age 39

I learned that I have to change the way I communicate, change the way I control stress so that I don’t affect the family with my individual stress. We were given the tools by the people who taught this course. Now, it’s applying them.Hispanic male, age 44

I would recommend the course to others. It really helped to be able to unite the family and I think it would benefit any couple who wants to keep moving forward with their family, with their new stepfamily. If they want to do something to keep going, this course is very worth it.Hispanic female, age 38

It was awesome … it enabled us to go home and talk about what they {the children} had learned and what we learned. We had some bumps in the road over the course of time, but I think it was beneficial as far as getting some understanding of where my daughter was coming from and also where my fiancée’s daughters were coming from, and their concerns. I’m more conscious about where my stepkids are coming from. I’m more understanding, I think, and I’m learning to be more empathetic. Whereas before, in my mind, I think I would judge.Hispanic male, age 39

Learning I don’t have to be a parent to her, I can just be her friend and that has helped with our relationship… I feel like I’m actually a successful stepparent rather than a failure.Caucasian female, age 46