A non-profit organization to help children and their parents whose lives are impacted by parental separation.

Program Overview

"A program for children whose parents are apart"

History and Mission	Project Description	Program Details
Organization	Outcome Studies	Conclusion

History and Mission
Children whose parents divorce or separate are at risk, but their plight is unseen and unrecognized. Separation or divorce can harm the mental and physical health of developing children. Custody disputes and ongoing conflict places children in a no-win situation. Resources to help children when parents are adversaries are scarce. Kids' Turn is a unique program of prevention dedicated to helping children whose parents have become opponents. A psycho-educational approach, focused on the whole family, helps children understand and cope with the harsh realities of divorce or separation and custody disputes. Kids' Turn is a non-profit workshop for children and their parents with a proven record. It has provided more than 130 workshops and graduated more than 2300 families, including 3600 children and 3800 parents.

Kids' Turn serves families when:

Parents are divorcing or separating or are in litigation involving custody
Parents' conflicts or failure to communicate are harming children's
emotional and/or physical well being
Children are exposed to domestic violence during or after divorce

Kids' Turn is an effective program of intervention and prevention to help the whole family successfully transition after major family upheavals (divorce, separation, legal actions, and changes in custody arrangements). Never married parents are also served by Kids' Turn. It is the only program in San Diego County that takes a whole family approach, working with the children AND both parents.

Children and teens are often impacted the most when parents experience conflict. They feel helpless, frightened, guilty and angry when the family breaks up. They may be placed in the middle between parents, believe they are the cause of their parents' problems, or feel pressured to take sides with one parent over the other. They are ill-equipped to deal with these issues and rarely have resources available to help them. Convincing evidence shows that these children are at great risk to suffer severe emotional difficulties that can last a lifetime, impacting individual lives and communities. A higher incidence of academic failure, drug and alcohol addiction, teen unwed pregnancy and criminal behavior are found in children of divorce.

Each year in San Diego County, more than 25,000 children are involved in their parents' legal actions. Parents too often become focused on their conflict with the other parent, ignoring or minimizing the needs of their children. Most adults have no idea how children suffer when parents become adversaries. If they are drawn into the process, the children become entangled in loyalty conflicts posing a serious mental health risk. The harmful effects of these childhood experiences persist well into adulthood.

The suffering of these children can be greatly minimized or avoided altogether when parents learn new coping skills that facilitate a cooperative co-parenting relationship.

Early intervention can alleviate many of these problems and with the help of trained professionals, parents and children learn how to solve problems as they arise. Kids' Turn reduces the need for future, more costly remedies. While there are other U.S. programs aimed at either children or their parents, the Kids' Turn program is one of only a handful in the country that reaches both parents and children simultaneously. In this way, it is uniquely able to ameliorate current difficulties while empowering family members to function together more effectively in the future.

Kids' Turn provides educational and psychological tools to help children successfully adapt to this major life event. In order to help the children, Kids' Turn knows it must help the whole family.

It is an effective program that:

Provides a safe, confidential place for children to talk about changes and problems
in their families with other children and experienced compassionate professionals.
Increases children's ability to talk openly and freely with parents and other trusted
adults. Helps children understand basic concepts about the legal process.
Offers an enjoyable learning environment with games, music, stories, and art - while addressing painful emotions and memories.
Helps children make a successful adjustment to challenging family changes.
Helps parents understand their children’s perspective and what they can do to assist their child’s adjustment to challenging family changes.
Improves communication between parents, reduces level of conflict and helps them
become more respectful and cordial in their interactions.
Decreases the likelihood that parents will resort to the legal system to resolve conflicts.
Improves the understanding of all family members and encourages positive,
solution-focused responses to family changes. Helps children develop resiliency and the necessary tools to respond to family problems.
Helps parents develop more effective parenting skills.

The overall goal of Kids' Turn is to reduce conflict, increase communication and maintain a supportive, cohesive environment in which family members can openly talk and solve problems. Kids' Turn also serves as a resource for outside referrals when additional expertise is needed.

Project Description
Each workshop consists of four educational sessions (a total of 8 1/2 class hours) for children age four and older and their parents. The curriculum was developed by mental health professionals and teachers and uses a variety of approaches and materials to help children and parents gain information, insight and new skills.

Five groups take place simultaneously, two for parents so that Mom and Dad are exposed to the same information in different groups and three for the children, grouped by age; 4 - 6 year olds in one group, 7 - 9 year olds in a second group while older children are assigned to a third group. Each group is led by a licensed mental health professional and/or credentialed teacher.

The cost of the 4-week workshop is $200 per parent. Tuition funds only 25% of the workshop costs. There is no charge for children. Qualifying parents can apply for a fee reduction.

Many participants are court-ordered to attend while others attend voluntarily on the recommendation of family law attorneys, teachers or counselors.

Details of the Program
Kids' Turn teaches children how to identify their feelings of anger, frustration, loss and fear. It provides them a safe environment in which to talk among other children with similar concerns and problems. Teachers and therapists gently guide the children through the various aspects of separation, divorce and new family structures.

Workshops are designed to be fun for the child while they learn about feelings, divorce and separation, and family change. Games, artwork, music, stories and play-acting are all used to give children a pleasurable means to understand difficult realities. Children seven and older write a collective newsletter to parents expressing how they feel about the family changes, what they need from their parents and how they are learning to take care of themselves. Children are given the opportunity to learn about the legal aspects of the divorce process by a visiting Family Court Judge. Children learn how to become more assertive and confident. They are less confused and better able to cope with their parents' difficulties.

The parent curriculum stresses the importance of accepting personal responsibility for assuring that children come first. Adults are led through a structured curriculum which teaches how to interact with the child's other parent constructively, how to help the child cope with the family changes and how to focus on problem solving. Parents learn about the effects of divorce on children at different stages of development and are given specific strategies to help their children adjust successfully.

Organization
Kids' Turn, San Diego is incorporated in the State of California as a not-for-profit organization and has been granted tax-exempt status by both the State and Federal Governments. Verification of this information is available upon request.

Kids' Turn is overseen by a Board of Directors and is supported by an Advisory Council comprised of community and business leaders. These professionals play a key role in setting long-term goals and policies, assisting in fundraising, public relations and overseeing the direction of the organization. Leaders from medicine, mental health, family law, academia and finance are represented on the Board.

Outcome Studies
A program evaluation study was completed in 2000 to evaluate the impact of Kids' Turn on families undergoing divorce or separation. Kids' Turn collaborated with professors Gerald Michaels and Dan Taube from the California School of Professional Psychology (now Alliant University) to assess the program's impact. The study consisted of both a qualitative assessment of the program's strengths and a quantification of data about the population we are serving.

The information was gleaned from registration forms and final evaluation sheets from both parents and 7-14 year-old children (all analyzed without names or identifying information). In addition, the researchers conducted in-depth interviews with children and parent graduates of Kids’ Turn; this information was analyzed qualitatively.

Overall, the data suggested that parents overwhelmingly found the experience beneficial in some way. Further, this was true across the four ethnic group’s studied—African American, Asian American, Hispanic, and White parents. A mere 1% said they would not recommend the program to other families going through divorce. The majority of parents indicated that this intervention had an effect on how they see themselves, their child, and their child’s other parent.

91% of parents agree or strongly agree that Kids' Turn helped them to communicate more openly and effectively with their children.
Half report that their children expressed more feelings about the divorce and separation after the program, as opposed to before it began.
50% of the children reported that their parents were talking with them more since coming to Kids' Turn.
91% of all parents said they agree or strongly agree that Kids' Turn helped them to understand their children's reaction to separation or divorce.
79% say Kids' Turn helped them learn how to discipline children more effectively.
86% of all parents said they agree or strongly agree that the workshop helped their children.
In the qualitative interviews, all 10 children responded positively in regards to the benefit of being with other children in a group and its ability to make them feel less alone or unique as a child of divorce.
A minimal 4% of children did not feel that Kids' Turn was a safe place for them to talk about their parents’ separation or divorce.
Parents reported that their children displayed less anger, sadness, irritability and crying after the program than before it started. This was mirrored in the children’s evaluations: the children reported positive changes in their feeling states - a reduction in feelings of discouragement, guilt, sadness, fear, hurt, confusion, loneliness, worry, and feeling pulled apart, and an increase in feelings of excitement, happiness, and calmness.
One-third of all parents said that as a result of Kids' Turn, they feel less likely to wind up in court over child custody issues.
More than half of the parents reported that Kids' Turn was effective in helping them co-parent with their ex-partner.
81% of the parents interviewed reported an improvement in their ability to communicate with the other parent as a result of Kids' Turn.

It’s clear that Kids Turn has a dramatic impact on children and the families that have been through the Kids’ Turn program. Kids’ Turn also believes that by helping families engage in a healthy divorce or separation, children are less likely to engage in negative behaviors associated with feelings of poor self-worth, guilt, anger, frustration and loneliness. In short, we believe that Kids’ Turn kids will do better in school, at home and will be much less likely to one day end up in Juvenile or Criminal court.

Conclusion
Kids' Turn is making an important contribution to children and parents who experience distress because of parental separation, divorce or other legal actions. The demand for Kids' Turn workshops is growing. The program continues because of the philanthropic support it receives from foundations, corporations and individuals. For more information, call 619-615-6289.