Forging Families’ Futures:
A weekend intervention
Overview
Forging Families’ Futures, a weekend intervention for families where a child is resisting or refusing contact with one parent, is open to families with children between ages 9 and 18. The program can accept up to three families for any one-workshop weekend. The program begins on Saturday morning and ends Monday at Noon. All family members, including live-in or significant others, must attend for the entire weekend. The program is held in a hotel and the children sleep together divided by gender with a counselor in each room. Parents may stay at the hotel or in another location, but must arrive by 8:30 each morning. Meals are shared and evening activities include all family members.
During each day parents and children meet in different combinations. The mornings begin with psycho educational groups for adults and for children. The afternoons are filled with a variety of different interventions, based on morning work, which may include parent-parent work, parent-child work, family work or multi-family work.
Goals
Goals for children include:
- Understanding their family, e.g. who is in and who is out and how that came to be.
- Understanding roles family members play through role play and role switching
- Identifying cognitive distortions
- Learning problem solving
- Becoming desensitized to rejected parent
- Seeing both parents working together in a safe way
Goals for Parents include:
- Managing and understanding negative thoughts and feelings
- Communication and listening
- Differences between child protection and over protection
- How children get into the middle of their parents’ conflict
- How children feel about being in the middle
- Goals for change
- Strategies to manage affect and behavior
How to Apply
The Forging Families’ Futures program is only offered in the Massachusetts area. The application and intake process is ongoing and dates are set during the later stages of the process.
For more specific information or to apply please call (508) 655-1775 or contact either:
Peggie Ward, Ph.D. at peggieward@comcast.net or
Robin Deutsch, Ph.D. at drrobindeutsch@gmail.com