WITHDRAWN: Prevention Science in the Context of Rapidly Changing Public Policies in the Family Court

Introduction: This presentation will discuss research of a team of prevention scientists interested in scaling up of an evidence-based program for divorced families in the context of rapid changes in the family court. Changes in the family court have been described as part of a “quiet revolution” affecting American families. One aspects of this revolution is a change in the distribution of parenting time allotted to mothers and fathers following divorce, with fathers receiving increased amounts of time. The second aspect of this quiet revolution is the increased activity of the court in providing services that help families reach agreements that reduce post-divorce conflict and that are in the best interest of children.

Methods: The prevention science team has a long history of collaborating with the courts on a number of projects but one of its primary continuing activities over 30 years has been the development and long-term evaluation of a group-based parenting after divorce program, the New Beginnings Program (NBP) that has shown remarkable long-term benefits for children over 15 years following participation. Because the courts have access to the population of divorcing families they are an attractive partner for scaling up the NBP. One form of this collaboration was an agreement with courts in four counties across the state of Arizona to invite all divorcing families (on a voluntary basis) to attend the NBP for free, using a research based “invitational DVD” shown in a brief parent education classes which all parents are required to attend to attend. The collaboration was funded by NIDA as an effectiveness trial in which community agencies were trained to deliver the NBP or a randomized low-dose control condition.

Results: Following the trial one of the courts found its’ own source of funding to maintain the program for a high risk sub-group of the population who would be court mandated to attend the program, high conflict divorces. The scaling up of the NBP is not an end in itself. Rather it requires ongoing research on questions that emerge as the program interacts with the changing context.

Conclusions: This talk will conclude by addressing 3 key questions: What is the impact of the program on families who are mandated to attend? How can we reduce the cost of the program, while maintaining its positive impact? What is the impact of the program on the court system itself, including costs of processing divorces?