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How do we keep relationships alive when children come along?

January 30, 2012 in Relationships, Separation, Services

Family separation affects children in many ways, some that are not readily apparent until later in life when children become parents themselves.  In the UK, where the divorce and separation rate remains high, perhaps its time to change the way we help families to deal with the aftermath of separation.

The children who do best after separation are those whose parents can disentangle the ending of their adult relationship from their ongoing parenting relationship.  This ability to continue to parent together provides for children the continuity and certainty of a close relationship with mum and dad, which in turn provides the foundation for successful adult relationships in the future.  But too many parents who are separating find themselves so caught up in their own pain and suffering that their children’s needs are simply overlooked.

To makes things worse the support  that is available to separating parents is often responsible for increasing the conflict between them.  Many organisations encourage the notion that one parent has control over the children, viewing the other as an optional extra, or argue that both parents should have equal rights to their children’s time. Neither of these approaches help parents to work together to give their children the love, care and support that is so essential to their well being.

We  should instead set an expectation that both parents will continue to be fully involved in their children’s lives after separation and invest in services to support that.  These services should not just be about reducing conflict but about helping children to feel secure in a model of close, positive parenting that they will be able to draw upon when they become parents themselves.

Services to support the rebuilding of parenting partnerships are delivered widely in other countries (for example Australia) but remain rare and underfunded in the UK.  The Centre for Separated Families offers support to both parents at the point of separation and beyond, helping separated mums and dads to build better relationships.  This approach is not a quick fix. But the investment is worth it because the research shows that  when parents can rebuild a working partnership their children will benefit for the rest of their lives.

We believe that the time has come to move from focusing upon adult rights to supporting parental responsibilities, and to invest in more services that reorientate parents towards the needs of their children. It is time for those who develop policy to think differently about what is really needed for children.  This is not just about helping children now, but about investing in the future.

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Kids’ Turn – evidence based, innovative divorce education programmes in the USA

January 30, 2012 in Separation, Services

Kids’ Turn in San Francisco was founded in 1988.  It was one of the first programmes in the United States offering educational services to children and parents that help children get through the emotional storms of parental separation or divorce.
Kids’ Turn is a leader in this  field in the US.  We are different from other divorce programmes:

  • simultaneous attendance by children (ages 5-17) and parents
  • a six week commitment to a workshop
  • service delivery in three languages – English, Spanish and Chinese.

Since 1988, we have served 17,000 parents and children in the San Francisco Bay Area, and that figure does not include the affiliate locations around the country and international partners who have purchased our curriculum.

Kids’ Turn is now evidence based, following the recent publication of a longitudinal study by Dr. Jeffrey Cookston  at San Francisco State University.  Dr. Cookston’s study took four years and the remarkable outcomes speak to the efficacy of Kids’ Turn programmes:

  • Reduction in parent conflict
  • Reduction in parental alienation
  • Reduction in internalisation of negative behaviours by children.

Most recently, Kids’ Turn has undertaken a revision of its curriculum to include elements of Emotional Intelligence (EQ) developed by Dr. Daniel Goleman in the 1990s.  EQ promotes the importance of each individual’s ability to manage complex emotions in any relationship.
The revised programmes encourage children and parents, using age appropriate methodology, to:

  • Identify their emotions
  • Manage their emotions
  • Affirm a motivation for emotional regulation
  • Identify  emotions in others
  • Manage relationships based on the ability to identify emotions.

The revised programmes are being tested now in the San Francisco Bay Area, and the feedback we are receiving from participants is very positive.

For more, visit www.kidsturn.org.

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Investing in young would save £486 billion over 20 years, says nef and Action for Children

January 30, 2012 in Family, Services

It is a well worn cliché that our children are our future but the decisions we make now will have repercussions in the long term, not just for them, but for us all. Action for Children and nef (the new economics foundation) have set out in the report Backing the Future what level of investment in what interventions need to be put in place to bring the UK out of its nadir, languishing at the bottom of nearly every European league table for preventable social problems – crime, mental ill health, family breakdown, drug use and obesity – into a place where children feel loved, are free from poverty, have supportive relationships and feel happy and safe.

With the recession biting it is as hard as ever to win support for a new way of going about investing in children. But the recession makes it even more important that we seize this opportunity to invest in services that work for our children and young people. That is exactly what Backing the Future recommends – that we invest in effective and efficient services that support a change in emphasis from spending on acute services to prioritising early intervention in order to address preventable social problems.

We found that if inefficient spending continues the cost to the UK economy of dealing with social problems could reach as much as £4 trillion over the next 20 years without addressing the root cause of the problems – dwarfing the overall cost of the MPs’ expenses scandal which has taken up so many column inches. The rewards of instead spending money now are compelling: a 10-year investment of £191 billion in targeted interventions such as working with families to keep children out of the care system, or improving parenting skills, will deliver a net return of £269 billion. This support for the most vulnerable should be accompanied by an investment of £428 billion in universal childcare and paid parental leave, which will deliver a net return of £606 billion over 20 years and eventually render many of the targeted interventions unnecessary.

With the recession continuing to hit the most vulnerable in society hardest, providing politicians with hard evidence as to how to get the most bang for the tax payer’s buck is an important first step to reshaping the way we invest in our children and breaking the cycle of disadvantage.

We know intuitively that picking problems up early is best but the key to achieving policy change is to lift barriers that for too long have created a bar to investment and implementation. This is the major challenge confronting politicians and, ultimately, us all.

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