Promising Practice - Australian Family Relationships Clearinghouse

Practice Profile

Family Transitions Triple P - Positive Parenting after Divorce

Contact details

Agency: The Parenting and Family Support Centre

Address: School of Psychology
The University of Queensland
St Lucia, QLD 4072

Contact: Dr Helen Stallman
Clinical Psychologist, Senior Research Manager
Phone: 07 3365 7304
Email: helen@psy.uq.edu.au

Website: experiment.psy.uq.edu.au/family

Funding source

ARC grant.

Program duration and frequency

The program commenced August 2006 and is a 12 week group program that includes 9 weekly group sessions followed by 3 weekly brief telephone consultations. Each group session is 2 hours in duration.

Program description

Family Transitions Triple P is a 12 week group program aimed at preventing negative outcomes for children following their parent’s divorce. The program aims to address the key risk and protective factors known to be linked to healthy adjustment in children.
The objectives are to:

Improve co-parenting relationships
Enhance parent coping skills
Improve conflict management skills
Promote parents developing new family identities
Encourage the use of positive parenting strategies

The program utilises an active skills training format, teaching parents new strategies and providing opportunities for parents to practice strategies during each session.

Geographical Area

Local community
Regional centre or town

Target Group

Women
Men

Is the program based on an existing program or training model?

Name of this existing program, country of origin and original target group.

Triple P - Positive Parenting Program; Australia; Parents

If not designed or developed in Australia, has the program been modified for use in Australia with a focus on specific target groups?

Describe how and why the program has been modified.

Family Transitions Triple P is an adaptation of Triple P that addresses risk and protective factors that are known to impact on the development of behavioural and emotional problems in children whose parents have divorced. The program is a 12-week parenting intervention which is 4 sessions longer than standard Group Triple P.

Is the program/practice based on the findings from empirical research, theory and/or a particular framework/model?

Briefly explain the research and/or framework model and the way this influences or informs the intended outcomes and objectives of the program/practice.

Family Transitions Triple P is a behavioural family intervention developed to address known risk and protective factors for negative outcomes for children following divorce. Intervention components are drawn from empirical research, primarily cognitive behavioural therapy.

Best practice intervention components have been incorporated in the program to address the risk factors parents and families face after divorce to enhance parental competence.

Has the program/practice generated any publications, reports, videos, presentations or unpublished papers?

Stallman, H. M. & Sanders, M. R. (2007). Family Transitions Triple P: The theoretical basis and development of a program for parents going through divorce. Journal of Divorce and Remarriage, 3/4, in press.

Has the program/practice been the subject of evaluation?

Yes - internal evaluation

What instruments were relied on to evaluate the program/practice?

Program participants compared to members of a control group (“no treatment” group)

Briefly describe the outcomes of the evaluation:

The program is currently being evaluated using a randomised control trial design. It is registered with the Australian Clinical Trials Registry (ACTR 12606000317594).

Preliminary data shows that Family Transitions Triple P has results in:

significant improvements in the number of child behaviour problems reported by parents and the intensity of those problems
significant improvements in the use of assertive discipline strategies
significant improvements in parental anger

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