Large numbers of infants and toddlers have parents who live apart due to separation, divorce, or nonmarital/noncohabiting child-bearing, yet this important topic, especially the controversial issue of frequent overnights with nonresidential parents, is understudied. The authors analyzed data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, a longitudinal investigation of children born to primarily low-income, racial/ethnic minority parents that is representative of 20 U.S. cities with populations over 200,000. Among young children whose parents lived apart, 6.9% of infants (birth to age 1) and 5.3% of toddlers (ages 1 to 3) spent an average of at least 1 overnight per week with their nonresident parent. An additional 6.8% of toddlers spent 35% – 70% of overnights with nonresident parents. Frequent overnights were significantly associated with attachment insecurity among infants, but the relationship was less clear for toddlers. Attachment insecurity predicted adjustment problems at ages 3 and 5, but frequent overnights were not directly linked with adjustment problems at older ages.

Over the past 30 years, number researchers have documented that interparental conflict predicts (predicts) adjustment difficulties among children from divorced and married families, as well as strained parent-child relationships. The conflict literature, reports of "parental alienation" behaviors, and clinical experience make it clear that some parents make disparaging comments about their coparent in front of their children. Very little empirical research has been conducted on the actual behaviors involved in what we term "parental denigration." Basic information is needed on how often denigration occurs, whether it is practiced by only one parent or both parents, and whether denigration adversely affects parent-child relationships. In the present study, 648 undergraduates completed a new, internally consistent measure of denigration as well as questionnaires about parent-child relationships. Results indicate that denigration (a) occurs infrequently but more often in divorced families, (b) is almost always practiced by both parents, and (c) is associated with less close parent-child relationships, especially with the denigrator parent. These initial findings underscore the need for more research on a construct that is studied rarely but frequently raised in custody proceedings and seen often in clinical work. This information will help bring awareness of these behaviors to courts, parents, and mental health professionals to best protect children from adverse psychological effects and help families function better in the midst of conflict.

The COVID-19 pandemic forced clinics to quickly shift service provision and supervision of students to remote operations. Mental health services for people facing barriers, including those who live in extreme poverty, remain a critical need, especially when considering the direct and indirect consequences of a global health crisis. The focus of this paper was to examine the effectiveness of psychotherapy treatment and clinical supervision, via telephone delivery (i.e., audio-only calls), from March to July of 2020 in a university training clinic, which primarily serves a low-income, community population. Participants (n = 33) were ethnically diverse, adult, outpatient psychotherapy clients from a large, urban setting and the university community. Primary diagnoses included major depressive, anxiety, and posttraumatic stress disorder. Student clinicians (n = 14) were novice psychotherapy providers, mostly in their second or third year of training. Qualitative data indicated that 1third of clients met treatment goals and successfully terminated during this period, while another third made significant progress toward these goals (operationalized as objective observations by the clinician and supervisor, self-reported changes by the client, and observations by the clinician and supervisor of in-session skill use). Smaller proportions of the sample were referred out for relocation or rotation changes, dropped out of care prematurely, or were transferred to a higher level of care. Clinician report of supervision alliance (SWAI-T), satisfaction, and other supervisory variables during remote supervision were comparable to in-person supervision and reflected good alliance and satisfaction for both modalities. These data suggest that use of audio-only calls for supervision and treatment provision can be effective for training and care, especially when clients have established therapeutic relationships with their clinicians. As telehealth services and remote training are likely to expand into the future, these findings provide preliminary support for the use of this modality as an option for clients with significant barriers to access and sufficient supervisory support to novice clinicians. Public Significance StatementMental health services for people facing barriers, including those who live in extreme poverty, remain a critical need during the COVID-19 pandemic, especially when considering the direct and indirect consequences of a global health crisis. Ensuring that a vulnerable population has access to high-quality mental health is crucial during the pandemic, as many individuals in this group do not have simultaneous access to all of the resources needed to migrate to a video telehealth platform for therapy sessions. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to contribute to the literature on the effectiveness of telephone-only telehealth service delivery by novice clinicians to provide an evidence-based approach for increasing access to needed care among community-based clients, often living in poverty.

Parental denigration is a phenomenon characterized by disparaging comments made by one parent about the other parent in front of their children. It is an emerging area of research with implications that could either follow a parental alienation perspective or a conflict perspective. In two prior studies of 648 and 994 young adults, denigration was found to be (1) measured reliably and perhaps validly; (2) reciprocally occurring; (3) related to children feeling more distant from both parents, particularly the more frequent denigrator; and (4) associated with various measures of maladjustment. These results held in married and divorced families, for mothers and fathers, in group and individual analyses, across own and sibling reports, and across studies. In a new study, parents also showed agreement in reported denigration, with divorced (particularly litigating) parents appearing motivated to underreport their own denigration behaviors and overreport their co‐parent's denigration behaviors. Across all three studies, results consistently aligned with a conflict perspective and indicated that denigrating one's co‐parent appears to boomerang and hurt the parent's own relationship with the children rather than distance children from the co‐parent.

Many legal issues involve conflicts that are at least as much psychological and relational as they are legal in nature. Juvenile and family courts have always embraced a helping philosophy under the parens patriae legal doctrine. These courts address problems where family relationships are central, for example, custody and coparenting disputes, divorce, child abuse and neglect, foster care, intimate partner violence, and juvenile delinquency. Family therapists are playing a growing role in all of these matters. In this article, we use child custody disputes as a more in-depth example for exploring new, potential roles for family therapists, particularly as mediators and parenting coordinators. To show the breadth of the role for family therapists, we also more briefly consider the topics of child abuse and neglect, foster care, juvenile delinquency, and drug and alcohol issues.