PHC 6534: Reducing the Long-Term Effects of Parental Divorce/Separation on Children and Teens

Abstract

An individual’s childhood and teenage years are formative years that can affect the rest of their lives, positively or negatively. Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are traumatic events that a child could face such as abuse, neglect, and household dysfunction (CDC, 2021). Under the household dysfunction category is a parent’s separation or divorce.

Divorce and separation are common and have short and long-term effects on the mental, emotional, and physical health of children who have experienced their parents getting a separation or divorce. It is important to provide these children and teens with coping skills that they will be able to utilize to heal from the emotional pain that comes with separation and divorce. Improving their coping skills could ultimately prevent chronic diseases such as diabetes, cancer, and heart disease.

Public Health Framework

This project will utilize a public health framework to increase the coping skills of a child and reduce their chance of developing short-term and long-term effects, especially chronic diseases, later in life. This project will have a focus on secondary prevention. The goal of secondary prevention is to reduce the impact of an event, once it has already occurred (Trauma-Informed Philanthropy). The secondary prevention level is aimed at those who are “at-risk”. Our individuals are considered to be “at-risk” because their parents are already separated or divorced. The goal is to intervene and help the child before they start to feel the effects of the divorce.

Levels of the Social Ecological Model

My project will be addressing the intrapersonal (individual) and interpersonal levels of McLeroy’s socioecological model (McLeroy et al., 1988). The intrapersonal level will be addressed through focusing on increasing a child’s resiliency after a divorce, which will increase the child’s conflict management skills, as well as increase their social competence (Fagan & Churchill, 2012).

The interpersonal level refers to the child’s relationship with others, including peers, teachers, or family. The child’s relationship with their parents is important to address because the divorce between the 2 parents is the reason for this intervention. The interpersonal level will be addressed through improving parent-child communication. Studies show that an intervention similar to this resulted in participants communicating with their parents more about their feelings (Pedro-Carroll & Alpert-Gillis, 1997).

Trauma-Informed Principles

Some of the trauma-informed principles that will be built into my program are: Trustworthiness and transparency, peer support and mutual self-help, and empowerment, voice, and choice (Trauma-Informed Philanthropy, 2012).  Trustworthiness will be built into my program by reassuring clients in the program that anything they say will be confidential. Transparency will be implemented through keeping open communication with the clients and letting them know what to expect (SAMHSA, 2014).

Peer support will be built into my program because many of the sessions will be in a group setting, thus, clients will be encouraged to share their experiences with each other and participate in “mutual self-help”. The games and activities will encourage collaboration between the individuals (SAMHSA, 2014). Fagan and Churchill found that these shared experiences will allow a child to build friendships with the individuals in their sessions (Fagan & Churchill, 2012). Empowerment, voice and choice will be built into the program by allowing clients to share their thoughts and feelings on anything without any judgement. This program will also ensure that clients are not forced to speak about their feelings; but will be encouraged. This allows the individual to feel empowered. This particular principle is important because it is possible that they have struggled with feeling like they don’t have a “voice” in their parents’ decision to separate.

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