Then and Now: A Follow-Up Study of Professionals' Perceptions of Parenting after Divorce Classes Descriptors: Long-term outcome evaluation

ABSTRACT. Fifteen million children experienced a divorce in their families in the 1990s. The primary determinant of adverse outcome in children is ongoing parental hostility after the divorce. A study in 1996 of community professionals (ministers, pediatricians, attorneys, school counselors and divorce mediators) in a western Colorado county demonstrated the need for parenting after divorce classes. It has now been seven years since the beginning of those classes; the views and perceptions of those professionals are reexamined.