Suchergebnisse

As is the case in most fields, the research‐to‐practice gap in family law is wide. The field of implementation science has emerged to attenuate these research‐to‐practice gaps. The goal of this article is to provide an overview of implementation science because drawing from efforts to reduce research‐to‐practice gaps in health care and other related fields can help the family court ameliorate its own. The current article will present an overview of implementation science, focusing specifically on how family law stakeholders can use implementation science to accelerate the implementation of evidence‐based practices, such as universal screening for intimate partner violence and the provision of parent education to divorcing parents, in their court settings. We provide practical examples and recommendations for family law practitioners seeking to implement evidence‐based practices into their settings, and we also highlight opportunities for family law researchers to integrate implementation science into future research.

AbstractFamily courts are increasingly interested in online parenting programs for divorcing and separating parents, particularly during the COVID‐19 pandemic. To our knowledge, no previous study has evaluated the barriers to and facilitators of parent participation in these programs for family law cases. We interviewed 61 parents in the midst of family law cases regarding their perspectives. While many parents viewed online parent programs positively (e.g., convenient), they also reported barriers to participation (e.g., technology problems). We offer recommendations (e.g., communication about program benefits) to support courts as they decide whether to continue ordering online parent programs following the pandemic.

We examined potential predictors of initial court agreement and 1‐year relitigation in a sample of contested paternity cases involving unmarried parents coming to court to establish paternity, child support, and other issues. Cases participated in an RCT of a parent program and of a waiting period between establishment of paternity and court hearing. We controlled for RCT study factors and used baseline assessment data to predict likelihood of reaching full agreement in the initial court hearing and relitigation in the following year. Findings suggest that cases in which parents get along better outside of court are more likely to reach agreement and less likely to return to court. Additionally, particular parent demographics predict lower likelihood of reaching initial agreement (e.g., parents are non‐White, father earns below $10,000 yearly), more relitigation (e.g., parents are non‐White, mother earns above $10,000 yearly, father has children with others), and less relitigation (e.g., father earns above $10,000 yearly). Child demographics and most parent relationship characteristics did not predict outcomes. We discuss findings and offer suggestions for court interventions.

We examined the association between parents' (N = 52 mothers and 52 fathers) and children's (N = 27) reports of interparental conflict and child difficulties in a family mediation setting. Parents' reports of conflict were moderately associated with children's reports of exposure to parental conflict, but only fathers' reports of conflict were associated with children's reports of negative responses to parent conflict. While mothers and fathers agreed on their child's difficulties, only mothers', not fathers', report of child difficulties were moderately related to child reports of child difficulties. Mothers' and fathers' reports of conflict generally were not strongly associated with reports of child difficulties. In contrast to parent reports, children's reports of exposure to parents' conflict were moderately and significantly related to self‐reported child difficulties and moderately related to parents' reports of child academic difficulties. The magnitude of the association between the child's report of interparental conflict and self‐report of difficulties was stronger than the association between parent report of conflict and parent report of child difficulties, suggesting that parents may not fully understand their child's exposure to parent conflict/violence or the problems their child is experiencing.

Key Points for the Family Court Community:
Family law stakeholders prioritize the creation of parenting arrangements that are in the best interest of the child; however, it is unclear how to gather information about the child and the child's perspective in order to inform such arrangements.
The study results suggest that parents may not agree with each other or with the child about important family issues, such as parent conflict and child difficulties. For example, parents may not fully understand their child's exposure to parental conflict/violence when in the midst of custody negotiations.
More research is needed to determine the best method for gathering information about the child during custody proceedings. In the meantime, it is important to gather information from multiple sources and to consider the agreement and differences across such sources of information.