New Ways for Families™ is an exciting new method for handling the growing problem of high-conflict families in our courts. It is designed to save courts time, to save parents money, and to protect children as their families re-organize in new ways after a separation or divorce, for married or never-married parents.

This interdisciplinary approach requires the cooperation and coordination of all professionals in addressing clients inside or outside the court process. The counseling component is brief and highly structured. It gives parents a chance to focus on making positive changes rather than becoming preoccupied with defending themselves in the endless “attack-defend” cycle of parenting evaluation and litigation. It can be a partial assessment tool for future parenting orders. It gives parents a chance to change before final decisions are made.

New Ways for Families™ is not operated as a centralized program. Instead, it is a method of teaching new skills and containing high-conflict behavior. Therefore, professionals can incorporate the New Ways method into their existing practice. Legal professionals act to reinforce the skills during their professional interactions with their clients, while therapists provide the counseling and assist with completion of the Parent Workbook.

Role of Professionals
New Ways for Families™ requires a significant shift in attitude in the family court setting, from encouraging litigation to encouraging out-of-court agreements and strengthening decision-making skills.

Judges need to emphasize validating and motivating clients for future change, rather than criticizing past behavior – while still making findings and orders about past behavior when necessary. Judges are in a position to enforce boundaries and hold parties accountable for their actions by understanding the method and requiring parties to report back to the court what they have learned, in the event that the parties are unable to reach their own out-of-court agreements.

Lawyers need to focus their clients on identifying and presenting neutral information about parenting behavior problems. Lawyers are often the first professional contact a high-conflict client has with the court system; therefore, they are in a unique position to contain the conflict by reinforcing the New Ways skills, discouraging litigation if possible, and focusing their clients on reaching an agreement rather than supporting the hgih-conflict behavior. Lawyers can also facilitate the process by assisting their clients with timely preparation of paperwork and ensuring that the client is moving through the steps in a timely manner.

Therapists need to be less involved in court decision-making, and more involved in counseling clients to overcome barriers to learning new skills.  Therapists help to contain high-conflict behavior and contribute to the success of New Ways by enforcing boundaries with a high-conflict party, ensuring that the Behavioral Declarations are completed before the Individual Counseling sessions begin, and assisting the clients in learning and practicing the three skills through the exercises in the Parent Workbook.

Do Professionals Need New Ways Training?
Yes, in order for this program to be effective in reducing high-conflict behavior, all professionals are encouraged to take a brief training in order to understand the dynamics of high-conflict personalities, the structure and components of New Ways and each professional's role.

High Conflict Institutes provides a Basic and Advanced Training for all professionals working with children and families going through the divorce or separation process.

The Basic Training is 6 hours and includes an overview of the New Ways method, how to use it in various settings, the research basis for the method, and how New Ways addresses domestic violence and other high-conflict issues. The Basic Training is required for mental health professionals who would like provide counseling to New Ways clients, and for legal and collaborative professionals who would like to be included on our New Ways referral lists.

The Advanced training is a 2-day training and provides a foundation for the Basic Training material. Day 1 provides an overview of several personality disorders, behavior often exhibited by these personality types, and methods for managing them in the professional setting. Day 2 covers the topics described in the Basic Training.

Approaches to Using New Ways
New Ways for Families™ focuses on helping parents strengthen their communication and decision-making skills; therefore, this method can be used in various settings, including family court, mediation, and collaborative divorce. In all settings, after participating in New Ways, the parties should be able to use their new skills to make their own agreements with the assistance of lawyers and private or court mediators, if necessary.

Following is a brief description of how New Ways can be used in each setting:

Court-Initiated:

• In the family court setting, parties participate in New Ways by court order, either by agreement of the parties or by a court order over one party's objection.
• Parties begin by selecting an Individual Parent Counselor from the New Ways Counselor List and complete Steps 1-3 using the Parent Workbook.
• In order to be successful, the judge must hold the parties accountable by making temporary orders in the beginning of the case and then discouraging court hearings until after the parties have completed the New Ways program.
• If the parties return to court for the judge to make their parenting decisions, then the judge should quiz each party on what they have learned in the New Ways program and how they would use these new skills in the future, to assist him or her in making final parenting orders.

Lawyer-Initiated:

• Lawyers should encouarge potentially high-conflict clients to attend New Ways before litigation. After completing Steps 1-3, the parties can return to the lawyer for assistance in making their own out-of-court agreements.
• In order for New Ways to be successful, it is essential that lawyers reinforce these skills with their clients during the settlement process, so that parties do not revert back to high-conflict behavior when dealing with the other party.
• New Ways provides a way for lawyers to contain the conflict and may make it easier to reach a settlement with a difficult client or opposing party.
• New Ways reduces the number of crisis phone calls from clients, opposing party, or opposing counsel by providing the parties with a counselor to talk to about the separation or divorce and to contain the high-conflict behavior.

Mediation:

• Mediators should encourage their clients to participate in New Ways after the first mediation session, before returning to negotiate a final agreement.
• The skills learned should provide for a more effective mediation process.
• Mediators can facilitate this process by reinforcing the skills during settlement discussions and reminding each party to use the new skills they have learned.
• Parties complete Steps 2-3, then for Step 4 the mediator plays the same role as a judge by reinforcing the three skills during the decision-making process.

Collaborative Divorce: For parties involved in Collaborative Divorce, the method is slightly different:

•  In many cases, New Ways will be more successful with Collaborative Divorce because the parties start out agreeing to cooperate.
• New Ways may benefit parties who are at risk of dropping out of the Collaborative Divorce process.
• The method is a "coaching" format rather than a "counseling" format.
• Use of the "Collaborative Parent Workbook" instead of the "Parent Workbook" which is used in the court-based model.
• Coaching sessions and Child Specialist meetings are non-confidential within the collaborative team.
• Parties sign an Agreement to Participate, specific to the Collaborative process, and there are no Behavioral Declarations to be completed.
• For Step 2, the parties attend 3 coaching sessions: 2 separate coaching sessions and then a third joint session with both parents and the coach(es). 
• For Step 3, each party attends 2 sessions with the child/ren and the Child Specialist, and then both parents attend a third joint session with the Child Specialist and the child/ren.
• After completing New Ways, parties should be able to make agreements within the normal collaborative framework.
• All Collaborative professionals are encouraged to complete the Basic Training so that the entire Collaborative team can reinforce the skills during the settlement process.

Individual and Family Therapy:

• The New Ways method may also be used in individual or family counseling, before the divorce process is initiated.
• A therapist may work one-on-one with clients who would benefit from learning and practicing these skills, even if New Ways has not been court ordered.
• The skills learned benefit parents and children in all aspects of their lives, not just in the context of the divorce or separation process.

Parenting Coordinators/High Conflict Case Managers:

• New Ways provides a method for containing high-conflict behavior even after the divorce or separation process.
• After final parenting decisions have been made, many parties will find it necessary to alter their parenting agreements. Instead of returning to court to do so, parties are encouraged to use a Parenting Coordinator or High Conflict Case Manager to assist with revising the parenting plan. 
• After becoming trained in the New Ways method, these professionals can reinforce the skills with their clients so parents can continue to reach agreements with little conflict.

Why Is Confidentiality Important?
An essential part of New Ways For Families™ is that the Individual Counseling is confidential. The Individual Parent Counselor does not write a letter, declaration, or report to the court. This way, the focus is on the parents' own skills.  If they are unable to reach a parenting agreement, the parents report back to the court what they have learned, without having to disclose what was said in the threapy sessions. At most, the Individual Counselor signs a Verification that shows the client completed the counseling and their Parent Workbook.

The Parent-Child Counselor is not confidential. However, this counselor does not speak with the Individual Parent Counselor, does not write a report or recommendation, and does not testify as an expert.  Instead, the Parent-Child Counselor may be called by the court to testify as to his or her observations of the parent-child interaction during the Parent-Child Counseling sessions.

The benefit of this approach is that the therapist can focus on helping the client learn new skills, rather than focusing on the past, the client's negative feelings about the other party, or the court battle. The therapeutic alliance would be built around learning new skills.

Further, the therapist would only be guided in the goals of the therapy, not the methods. This way the therapist would use his or her own style and skills to accomplish these goals, rather than being told how to do this by the court.

What About Domestic Violence and Substance Abuse?
In domestic violence cases and substance abuse cases, this counseling would be in addition to other mandated group treatment programs. New Ways may also serve as a "gateway" to other treatment programs by providing the judge with additional information as to each party's ability to reflect on his or her own behavior and his or her ability to change negative behavior. Group treatment programs have been demonstrated to be effective and often necessary for these specific problems. However, these programs often do not have as substantial an impact without the addition of individual counseling which would be offered by New Ways For Families™. This method offers both parents new skills and individual counseling, not just one parent.

Cost to Courts
Courts do not incur a cost to implement or manage the program. New Ways should result in short- and long-term savings by providing litigants with structured skills-building tasks, which shifts their focus from complaining about the other party to practicing their own skills and being accountable for their own behavior. No major court changes are required to use New Ways, and it can be ordered under existing statute as parent and/or child counseling in most jurisdictions.

Cost to Parents
Parents do incur a cost to participate in New Ways. These costs vary depending on the hourly rates of therapists per jurisdiction. On average, each parent would pay approximately $600-$1500 for the entire program. This is not expensive given the potential cost of high-conflict litigation to the parents after paying attorney fees for hearings and trial.