Evaluation of court-initiated randomized controlled trial of online parent programs for divorcing and separating parents.

Journal of Family Psychology, Vol 37(1), Feb 2023, 65-78; doi:10.1037/fam0001049We conducted an evaluation of a court-initiated randomized controlled trial comparing outcomes for parents assigned to either a no-program control group or one of two online parenting programs—Two Families Now (TFN) or Children in Between (CIB)—among 221 parents in initial divorce or separation court cases. We gathered parent report measures of family functioning at study entry, completion of program, and 1-year following study entry. We also gathered and coded court records to capture the content of the document resolving issues and occurrence of relitigation in the following year. All findings became statistically nonsignificant when a Bonferroni correction was employed. Before correction, however, a few statistically significant differences between groups emerged. Immediately following program completion, there were no study condition differences on measures of parental beliefs and intentions regarding parenting. One year following study entry, three statistically significant differences between program and no-program conditions emerged. Those assigned to a program reported significantly less intimate partner abuse and had less relitigation in court than those in the no-program condition, both with small effect sizes. Contrary to hypotheses, parents assigned to a program reported less social support than parents in the no-program condition. Overall, the findings do not provide strong suppor...
Source: Journal of Family Psychology - Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research