| Researchers have investigated the impact of different variables such as conflict, high-conflict, divorce, and separation on parents as well as their children, and the results are sobering and include negative impacts on the physical (Burman & Margolin, 1992; Ditzen, Hahlweg, Fehm-Wolfsdorf & Baucom, 2011) and psychological (Barnett, Steptoe & Gareis, 2005; Burman & Margolin, 1992; Ditzen et al., 2011) health of the couple and negative psychological consequences for the children (Kim, 2011; Noller, Feeney, Sheehan, Darlington, & Rogers, 2008; Oldehinkey, Ormel, Veenstra, De Winter, & Verhulst, 2008; Strohschein, 2012). The purpose of this study was to explore the experiences of the individuals who completed the New Ways for Families (NWFF) program, an intervention designed for high conflict families, in a city in Alberta, Canada. This study was meant to serve as one aspect that may be used in a formative evaluation to help the program creators modify it as needed in order to potentially improve the participants' experience (Stetler et al., 2006). A qualitative research design was used, implementing an emergent and exploratory focus, in order to gain an understanding of the participants' perspectives regarding the program through the analysis of 16 completed semi-structured interviews obtained from archival data. Data was analyzed using the constant comparative method (Maykut & Morehouse, 1994). Eight themes emerged: What participants identified as helpful; What participants identified as not helpful; Variation in perceived effectiveness; Possible factors influencing outcome; Hope/expectations going into the program; Differences in knowledge and/or beliefs of program utility; Small town impacting confidentiality and ease of access, and change/improvements. Results suggest that the age of the children and the length of time since separation/divorce impacted the perceived effectiveness of the program in at least some of the participants. Clinical implications and recommendations to the program creator and those responsible for implementing the program are also discussed. |
