Program to improve the lives of parents and children

Oct 1 2009

Kids’ Turn (KT,) a San Francisco-based non-profit organization today announced results of a landmark study by Dr. Jeffrey Cookson, Department of Psychology at San Francisco State University.

In the study, conducted over four years, Dr. Cookson validated the impact of the Kids’ Turn curricula (The Kids’ Turn Way), which includes a six-week course for children and parents focused on reducing the negative impact of parental separation. Attending the Kids’ Turn workshop resulted in a significant decrease in parent conflict and parental alienation and a significant decrease in the children’s internalizing behavior problems.

Dr. Cookson evaluated behaviors of a sample of parents and children before and after attending Kids’ Turn workshops. According to the study, “Overall, our results indicate that the Kids’ Turn program has demonstrated the ability to improve the lives of parents and their children after a divorce. For parents, there is a decrease in parental conflicts and improvement in parent functioning (i.e., lower anxiety and depression). For children, there is lower anxiety and overall improvement in mental health. That we found change behaviors following participation in a community based program suggests that families will benefit from participation in the Kids’ Turn multiple session group. Given that divorce is one of the most difficult times that both parents and their children face and that the Kids’ Turn program has demonstrated the ability to help these families recover from the devastation, we are hopeful that further attention will be paid to offering these services in multiple communities.”

In making the announcement, Claire Barnes, Kids’ Turn executive director said, “The study unequivocally validates the work we are doing to increase hope and optimism of children of families going through parental separation. The negative impact that parental separation has on individual children and society has reached epidemic proportions. Children often find themselves caught in the middle of parental disputes. The tangential relationships between parental separation and childhood difficulties (e.g., obesity, developmental, academic, social, psychological problems, etc.) are well proven. Kids’ Turn takes children out of the middle of parental struggles and puts them at the center of family healing and resolution through a curriculum that teaches children a variety of coping skills and provides parents with appropriate parenting and conflict reduction skills.”