Examined issues surrounding mothers' decisions to relinquish custody of their children and explored their postdivorce relationships with their former spouses and children. Analyzed qualitative and quantitative interview data from 13 noncustodial mothers. Subjects varied in terms of actual reasons for giving up or losing custody. Subjects perceived…

Describes experience of helping two sets of divorcing parents retain meaningful contact between young children and non-resident fathers. Argues that failure to consider past parenting practices, to grant children party status and give them independent representation, and to offer child-centered services to help parents practice shared parenting…

Examined whether legal ties between members in the nuclear family affect the father-child relationship after domestic breakup. Found no evidence that civil status could explain differences in the post-separation organization of parenting, but a sole legal custody arrangement from the child's birth may disfavor cohabiting fathers as future…

Examined visitation problems from the perspectives of residential and nonresidential parents through interviews. Subjects were 341 fathers and 271 mothers from 378 divorcing families. Residential parents perceptions of visitation problems were correlated with concerns about their ex-spouse's parenting abilities. Anger and hurt about the divorce…

Study examines interrelationship of nonresident father visitation, parental conflict over the visitation, and mother's satisfaction with the visitation. Data from the National Survey of Families and Households determined that children were least well off in families where mothers were dissatisfied with high levels of father contact. (Author/JDM)

Examines patterns of use and predictors of unmet needs among a sample of 74 Latino grandparent caregivers. Lack of knowledge was the major barrier to service use, and predictors of unmet needs included low education, poor health, high levels of life stress, and lack of reliable help with child rearing. (Author/GCP)

Describes the addiction recovery process and its impact on parenting behaviors, as this information pertains to child welfare workers involved in family reunification decisions. Reviews two models of recovery, one from alcoholism and one from cocaine addiction, and discusses women's recovery issues, case examples, and child welfare applications.…

Explored the impact of caregiver alcohol and other drugs (AOD) use on child protective services (CPS) case substantiation: cases with indications of AOD use were more likely to be substantiated than those without. Compared CPS-involved and non- involved women in AOD treatment; increasing numbers of children and younger maternal ages are risk…

Investigated fathers' involvement in planning permanent kinship foster care for their children, examining frequency of contact between fathers and caseworkers, content of these contacts, and fathers' participation in permanency planning. Found that most fathers had no contact with caseworkers and had never participated in planning. Paternal…

Objectives: Children are often considered a primary motivator for women seeking substance abuse treatment. This study tested a model predicting treatment motivation in substance-abusing mothers. Methods: This study was a secondary analysis of the Drug Abuse Treatment Outcome Study (DATOS). It used structural equation modeling to describe factors…

The author analyzed quantitative data from an NIMH-funded longitudinal study of 322 women with persistent severe mental illness (SMI) and qualitative data from semistructured interviews with 82 of the women who ever lost custody of a child. The purpose was to test the hypothesis, derived from human ecology theory, that individual and environmental…

In this article, I suggest that postdivorce paternal disengagement may be rooted in the father's tendency to link his children and ex-wife as a single entity in consequence of his failure to adequately mourn the loss of his ex-wife and to redefine his paternal role and identity in distinction from his spousal role and identity. I also suggest that…

The authors describe a study of families in the Family Drug Treatment Court (FTDC), an effort to promote permanent placement for substance-exposed infants within time requirements mandated by the 1997 Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA). The purpose of the study was to evaluate parent functioning after FTDC involvement, infant developmental…

Dealing predominantly with issues related to divorce and custody, this conference proceedings contains 20 papers or summaries; they are: (1) "Choices, Challenges, Changes" (Constance Ahrons); (2) "The History of the Joint Custody Movement" (Karen DeCrow); (3) "Children Held Hostage: Dealing with Programmed and Brainwashed…

Implemented in the 1970s, Alaska's system of "no fault" divorce creates economic hardships for women and children instead of providing greater family equity. The study site selected was Anchorage because its demographic profile generally reflects the statewide profile, necessary court records are accessible and more than one-half of all…