A 4-day, 3-night family program
Overview
Courtesy of Common Ground Center
This camp, with it’s relaxing activities and skilled, supportive staff who understand the complexities of the relationships, provides a unique opportunity to create new beginnings and new memories for families. In addition to traditional camp activities like yoga, arts and crafts, hiking and campfires, families will participate in specially designed Children and Adult Programs each morning. The psycho-educational part of this family camp, led by experts in this field, will help both parents see the value of the other in the child’s life as well as help children become more free to feel and show connection with both parents. Families will learn how to repair ruptured relationships in a safe and healthy environment.
The High Conflict Divorce Camp is most similar to the original Overcoming Barriers. Both parents and children will attend the program. The camp is one day shorter than the original Overcoming Barriers Family Camp (OBFC) and will run from Friday afternoon through Tuesday midday. In 2012 camp will be held at a family oriented retreat center in the greater San Francisco Bay Area, June 29-July 3, 2012. Please see the Family Court Review Article Page for a description of the program components.
Participation of entire family
Overcoming Barriers High Conflict Divorce Camp requires the participation of all family members. In many cases this requires that the family obtain a court order through a legal process that can take time. Because space at camp is limited, OCB will give priority to those families in which all parties commit to participate over families that have not had all parties commit to participate.
Campers are expected to be present for all camp activities. Cell phone and internet use are only allowed during short pre-arranged times. Children under the age of 18 are not allowed to have cell phones.
Aftercare recommendations
All participating families are required to have adequate professional support to receive recommendations of the aftercare plan. Who receives this information and what is considered an adequate professional support network will vary from case to case. In some cases OCB clinicians have made recommendations directly to judges. Throughout the intake process OCB intake staff will pay particular attention to the goals of the aftercare recommendations and make recommendations if the existing support network is considered inadequate.
Some families who have attended previous camps have developed aftercare programs that have ended their involvement in the Court.
Can involvement in the High Conflict Divorce Camp be an alternative to a continuing involvement in the traditional legal process?
Some families that are earlier in the process of divorce may request that OCB provide feedback to the court as an alternative to custody evaluation (the typical cost of a custody evaluation is $6-20,000). Families that want OCB to present recommendations to the court as part of aftercare plan should make this clear in the application.
Cost
- Clinical intake: $500 allocated as the Court has ordered
- Deposit: $4000 Due upon acceptance to camp, allocated as the Court has ordered
- Attending camp per family $9000 (more than four family members add $500 per extra family member)
- OCB clinicians follow-up with courts to be paid by hourly rate
Location and Dates
The High Conflict Divorce Camp will be offered once in 2012.
Where: San Francisco Bay Area, California
When: June 29-July 3, 2012
How to Apply
If you are interested in this program on behalf of your family please ask professionals working on your case to look into the program. Neutrality on the part of Overcoming Barriers is a key component of all our programming and the intake process needs to assure that neutrality. Most families require a court order to attend the camp. We will have the following documents available on this page soon so that the family and support network can approach the court before contacting Overcoming Barriers if necessary.
- Declaration by Clinical Program Director Dr. Matt Sullivan describing the camp
- Sample motion to court for family attendance
- Sample court order to attend camp
- Characteristics of family to consider
OCB will send an update to to people who have joined our email list or otherwise given us their contact information.
Direct questions to california@overcomingbarriers.org