Evaluating Parenting Coordination Programs: Encouraging Results From Pilot Testing a Research Methodology

A subset of families who separate and divorce become embroiled in conflict and demand a disproportionate amount of court resources both during and after their legal divorce process. The court system has responded by establishing parenting coordination (PC) programs to assist parents in resolving conflict without utilizing court resources to do so. In spite of widespread implementation, empirical research into the effects of PC programs is “practically nonexistent” (Henry, Fieldstone, & Bohac, 2009). The present study is a pilot study of a PC program in one jurisdiction to investigate the use of a methodology not previously used within the parenting coordination literature to test the effectiveness of PC programs. Variables relating to the amount of judicial, court personnel, outside agency, and parental time that was spent on each case were coded from legal divorce files. Results indicate that the PC program reduced the number of: motions filed by parents, documents processed by court personnel, judicial ...