Evaluation of Topics in Utah's ONE‐HOUR Divorce Education Program

• Author: Brian Higginbotham,Joshua J. Turner,David G. Schramm,Olena Kopystynska
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/fcre.12469
• Published date: 01 July 2020
• Date: 01 July 2020

EVALUATION OF TOPICS IN UTAH’S ONE-HOUR DIVORCE

EDUCATION PROGRAM

Olena Kopystynska, Joshua J. Turner, David G. Schramm, and Brian Higginbotham

Divorce education programs are mandatory in most states. Despite the ongoing debate in the field regarding the appropriate

duration of these programs, the goal of the current study was to identify the following five content areas in divorce education

that may be most relevant for predicting favorable outcomes: (1) impact of divorce on children, (2) impact of divorceon fam-

ily relationships, (3) financial responsibilities of divorcing parents for children, (4) benefits of positive coparenting, and (5)

impact of domestic violence on children and family relationships. Using divorcing parents’self-reported data (N= 3,275)

from a one-hour online divorce education program in Utah, we examined participants’post-divorce intentions to treat each

other respectfully, especially in front of the child(ren), and engage in positive coparental practices. The results showed that

the program was effective in obtaining these objectives. We discuss these findings in depth and offer suggestions for future

programs.

Key Points for the Family Court Community:

As more states offer shorter, online divorce education programs, it is important that the most relevant and useful

topics are adequately covered.

We evaluated the anticipated benefits of Utah’s one-hour, online, divorce education course content.

Considering disagreements in the field regarding the appropriate length of divorce education programs, we provided

an examination of child-centered content knowledge that has shown to be most relevant to the program’s objectives

and desired outcomes.

Despite the program’s brevity, most individuals reported relatively high levels of knowledge related to the program

topics following completion.

Keywords: Child Adjustment; Coparenting; Course Topics; Divorce; Divorce Education.

The presence of divorce education programs has become commonplace in the United States

(Blaisure & Geasler, 2006; Douglas, 2004). These programs are designed to promote productive

post-divorce interparental and coparental relationships, especially for the benefit of the children

involved. Nearly every state offers some form of divorce education (Mulroy, Riffe, Brandon, Lo, &

Vaidyanath, 2013), and in most states, these programs have become court mandated for divorcing

couples with dependent children (Cronin, Becher, McCann, McGuire, & Powell, 2017). Recently,

many states have moved toward more streamlined delivery methods for their divorce education pro-

grams with the goal of making such programs more convenient and accessible to divorcing parties

(Bowers, Ogolsky, Hughes, & Kanter, 2014).

The most common approach to streamlining divorce education programs is to provide

shorter versions of traditional face-to-face courses in an online format (Becher et al., 2015;

Choi, Hatton-Bowers, Brand, Poppe, & Foged, 2017; Schramm & McCaulley, 2012). The

move toward offering shorter programs has been deemed necessary by courts and state legisla-

tures due to issues related to attendance (e.g., convenience of taking an online course at the

most suitable time for each participant) and funding (Choi et al., 2017; Cookston, Braver, San-

dler, & Genalo, 2002). Shorter programs are also seen as beneficial because they are less

Corresponding: olena.kopystynska@usu.edu

FAMILY COURT REVIEW, Vol. 58 No. 3, July 2020 804–815

© 2020 Association of Family and Conciliation Courts