More than one million children are affected by their parent’s divorce each year. Half of these children will be raised in a family system where parents remain in conflict. Children raised in an environment of ongoing conflict are four to five times more likely to grow up with serious emotional and behavioral problems. In order to minimize the adverse effects of divorce on children and families, many parents choose, or are ordered to work with a Parenting Facilitator.

A Parenting Facilitator is designed to assist divorced parents in implementing their parenting plan, monitor compliance with the details of the plan, resolve conflicts regarding their children and the parenting plan in a timely manner, and protect and sustain safe, healthy and meaningful parent-child relationships. Parenting Facilitation is a quasi-legal, mental health, alternative dispute resolution (ADR) process that combines assessment, education, case management, conflict management and sometimes decision-making functions.

Parenting Facilitation benefits divorcing or divorced parents by:

• Assisting parents to shift their roles from former spouses to co-parents.
• Educating parents about the impact of parental conflict on their child’s emotional well-being.
• Helping parents identify their individual contribution to conflict while increasing impulse control.
• Teaching parents anger management, communication and conflict resolution skills, and children’s issues in divorce.
• Ensuring execution of the possession schedules specified in the temporary orders or divorce decree.
• Monitoring parenting time and modifying time-sharing arrangements as a means of reducing parental conflict.
• Working with parents in developing a detailed cooperative parenting plan for issues such as living arrangements, discipline, holidays, communication, etc.

Parenting Facilitation benefits children by:

• Reducing the child’s symptoms of stress as parental conflict decreases.
• Diminishing the child’s sense of loyalty binds.
• Creating a more relaxed home atmosphere allowing the child to adjust more effectively.
• Teaching effective communication and conflict resolution skills as modeled by their parents.
• Increasing the likelihood of keeping two active parents in the child’s life.
• Ensuring the child’s safety through open parental communication.
• Enhancing the child’s confidence and self-esteem by creating an optimal environment for growth.
• Diminishing the likelihood of future relationship difficulties and divorce in the child’s future.

Reducing the possibility of adolescent drug and alcohol problems, teenage pregnancy, school drop-out rates, and crime associated with children of divorce.

Required Forms

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