If you are a professional working with high conflict divorced parents, The Focus on Kids Program at Jewish Family Service of New Haven is a valuable resource for you to know about. You may already know that at times high conflict divorced parents spend a lot of time, energy and money in lawyer's offices and in the courtroom while they try to make parenting arrangements. Progress in such cases may be slow and meetings may be filled with argument and contention. Not only is this very costly for the family, it can also be highly frustrating for and consume a lot of time and resources on the part of the lawyers involved. And while the battles are being waged in the courtroom and legal offices, the children may be suffering from the acrimony and lack of resolution of the co-parenting arrangements.

The Focus on Kids Program is now in its second year at Jewish Family Service, and is based upon the highly successful PEACE ( Parents Equally Allied to Co-Parent Effectively) Program. Its primary focus is to teach high conflict divorced parents the skills they need to reduce conflict and increase successful communication and problem solving in order to effectively address the needs of their children.

From the onset, Focus on Kids counselors meet with participating divorced parents jointly, usually for 8-10 sessions. Counselors evaluate the parents’ current level of communication and set initial goals for improvement in their level of cooperation and decision making. The focus is not on helping them resolve negative feelings towards one another or changing well ingrained personality patterns of traits. The emphasis is on consistently giving the message that it is their joint responsibility to work in the best interests of their children. Without using complex jargon, counselors focus on teaching effective communication and conflict resolution skills and helping them to behave in appropriate and healthy ways with one another and their children.

Recently, a lawyer wrote a letter to a Focus on Kids social worker at Jewish Family Service praising her work with the divorced parents of her client: “Thanks so much for speaking with me a couple of weeks ago. I have read your November summaries and you are sparing this family tremendous time in court, substantial attorney’s fees and most likely a less satisfactory result than they will be able to work through under your guidance.”

Lawyers are kept informed about the progress that the parents have made by summaries that the social worker writes after each session and sends to the parents and the lawyers who are involved. In these letters, the social worker summarizes the discussion and the decisions that were reached during a particular session, as well as the communication difficulties of the parents and suggestions for improvement. In cases in which the courts have ordered that the parents participate in “Focus on Kids,” these letters are particularly useful. In other cases, it may also be helpful that information that is relevant to the successful resolution of the issues be in a consistent manner with all active participants.

If you would like more information about the Focus On Kids Program, please call Heni Schwartz at 203 389-5599 x111 or Alice Raim at x117.