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Hosted by Rachelle Katz, Ed.D.
More than thirty percent of every single wedding held today will form a brand new stepfamily. Blended families have unique needs and challenges but all share one common denominator: a hope for happiness, peace, relaxation, and love at home. Stepfamily Central is your touchstone for information, tools, tips and support as you navigate the road ahead with your family. You receive expert advice for tough situations like intrusive biological moms, holiday stress and how to provide the right environment for kids in these circumstances. You are not alone! Join us on Stepfamily Central to stay focused and confident and on that path to happiness.
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Today on Stepfamily Central, Rachelle continues her conversation with Dr. Jeannette Lofas, and talks to her about the pros and cons of joint custody when couples divorce. Jeannette is affectionately considered to be the wise woman of the stepfamily community and is a leading authority on stepfamilies. In fact, she won a presidential award for her work. She has written five books: among which is Living in Step, Stepparenting: Everything You Need to Know to Make It Work, How to Be A Parent, and He’s OK, She’s OK: Honoring the Differences Between Men and Women. Jeannette is the President and Founder of Stepfamily Foundation, Inc. Besides working with stepfamilies to help improve their lives, Jeannette trains mental health professionals to become stepfamily coaches and counselors. She is offering another certification class the weekend of April 26 & 27th of this year. You can find out more about Jeannette and her certification program by going to her website, http://www.stepfamily.org.
Rachelle Katz, Ed.D. is a licensed marriage and family therapist who works in New York City. She is also the author of The Happy Stepmother: Stay Sane, Empower Yourself, Thrive in Your New Family, a self-help guide for stepmothers published by Harlequin Nonfiction in 2010.
Rachelle’s interest in stepfamily issues grew from her personal experience as a stepmother. To gather research for her book, Rachelle developed a website, stepsforstepmothers.com which included on online survey for stepmothers to complete. More than 3,000 stepmothers completed the questionnaire in two years, a phenomenal response! A chat room was also featured on the website where she invited stepmothers to form an online community to provide each other with support, acknowledgement, and encouragement. To this day, the chat room remains incredibly popular as an online resource for stepmothers. From the information she gathered from the questionnaire and chat room, Rachelle developed a simple 10 step plan to help stepmothers navigate their challenges, and wrote The Happy Stepmother.
In addition to her psychotherapy practice, Rachelle leads a monthly stepmother support group and runs workshops for stepmothers and their partners. She has appeared as a guest on many online radio shows including NPR’s Radio Times, the Stepmom’s Toolbox, Divorced Dads as well as a guest on cable TV shows, such as The Dalma Heyn Show and Liquid Lunch for Book-Lovers. She has written articles for the Huffington Post, Belief net, CaféMom among many other online publications.
In addition to being a licensed marriage and family therapist, Rachelle is an addictions specialist, certified in alcoholism and substance abuse counseling. She earned her doctorate in Family and Community Education from Teachers College, Columbia University. She is a member of the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy, the American Psychological Association and the American Counseling Association.
She has been married for 21 years, and has a 26-year-old stepdaughter. She loves to travel and is interested in photography and antiques.