Family Ties Online Help for Parents in Conflict

Session 1 was an introduction to the Family Ties Online Therapy for Parents in Conflict. Your therapist will have given you an overview of what the programme is about, and you will have discussed whether the programme is right for you and your family.  

You will also have identified one goal that you will revisit each session with your therapist. You, along with your therapist, may choose to track this using the Goals Based Outcome Measure.

Your therapist will have told you that part of this programme includes your children attending sessions to hear about what you and their other parent are doing. Children have told us that this helps to take the pressure off and helps them see their parents as more of a unit.  In session 2, we will also ask your children to complete some short questionnaires with the therapist. In our experience, asking the child how they are helps children understand that their parents are working together to help them feel better. We have developed some information sheets, which you can use to explain the programme to your child 

Family Ties Online: Leaflet for Younger Children 

Family Ties Online: Leaflet for Adolescents 

Finally, your therapist will have mentioned the fact that we are conducting an evaluation on this programme so we can better understand if it is helpful to children and families. If you would like to be part of the evaluation, and we hope you will, you will need to complete some questionnaires before moving on to Session 1. If you have any questions about the evaluation, please email the Family Ties team, at FamilyTies@annafreud.org.

Ahead of Session 3, please watch the two seminars below on Vulnerability Cycles and Destructive Patterns, and discuss them with your network. Come to Session 3 ready to discuss the seminars, as well as your network’s input to that discussion.

Vulnerability Cycles

Destructive Patterns was adapted from No Kids in the Middle multi-family therapy intervention, developed by Justine van Lawick from the Lorentzhuis and Margreet Visser from the Kinder- & Jeugdtraumacentrum

If you would like subtitles on the videos, you can turn on closed captioning by pressing the cc button in the lower right-hand corner of the video.

Ahead of the next session, please watch the two videos below on Letting Go and Self-Awareness and Stress Reduction.  

After you watch the videos, go back to your parenting agreement and continue to work on it. Be prepared to continue discussing it at your next meeting with your therapist 

Letting Go

The intersession task this week is for parental couples to identify and agree on a specific parenting issue where the pattern of communication has got stuck. This will be the main focus for the next session. Parents should email a summary of their identified issue to their therapist ahead of the next session. The next session will not go ahead until the therapist has received the summary.

Ahead of the next session, please watch the following videos on the Impact of Parental Conflict and Child Triangulation.  

Following this, with your network, think about where your child/ren are on the different dimensions of child triangulation and what you think you as a parental couple and network can do to improve your child’s situation.  

Download and complete this worksheet and send it to your therapist ahead of the next session. The next session will not go ahead until the therapist has received the summary. 

Impact of Parental Conflict

head of the next session, please watch the following seminar on the Co-Parenting agreement. There are two seminars, one for parents who are together and one for parents who are separated. Please watch the seminar that best fits your situation.

After you have watched the relevant video, it is time to start thinking about your co-parenting agreement. Please download and complete the parenting agreement template, and start to identify areas for the parenting agreement with your network and your co-parent. Email a first draft of your co-parenting agreement to the therapist in advance of the next session. The next session will not go ahead until the therapist has received the agreement draft. 

Co-parenting for parents who are together

Ahead of the next session, continue working on your co-parenting agreement with your support network. Get their feedback on the agreement and bring that to your next session with your therapist.

Your next session will be your final session with your therapist without your child.

In advance of the next session, email your co-parenting agreement to your therapist. The session will not go ahead until your therapist has received the agreement.

As your therapist will have told you, we are inviting your child to attend the next session, to hear what you and your co-parent have been working on. 

Ahead of the session, prepare a brief presentation for your child, either with your co-parent or independently, about what you have learnt and what changes you have made and/or will make going forward. Your therapist will call you to check on how your preparation is going ahead the session.  

If you consented to the evaluation, you will need to complete the post-therapy questionnaires before coming to the next session. You should have received a reminder from the evaluation team to do so. If you would prefer, you can complete these during the final session, while your therapist is doing the child questionnaires with your child. If you have questions, or have not received the link to complete the questionnaires, please contact FamilyTies@annafreud.org.

Congratulations on completing the Family Ties Online Therapy! We hope you have had a good experience. Your therapist and evaluation team will be in touch to schedule a follow-up session where you can hear more about the questionnaires you completed, if that is something you are interested in doing. We will also invite you to take part in a short interview with the evaluation team, so we can gather feedback on your experience with the programme. As ever, if you have any questions, please contact FamilyTies@annafreud.org.