Reprinted from: Daily Court Review
by Michael Clements
Daily Court Review
Anyone involved in the Family Court System can tell you that divorce isn't the end of anything. But according to Lidya Osadchey, executive director of the ESCAPE Family Resource Center in Houston, it can be a way to build new beginnings.
"We give life skills on how to handle conflict and manage stress," Osadchey said. "Skills on how to raise a child in a divorce situation."
Troy Cosse, a mother of two, is well acquainted with the difficulties that arise between two people raising children post-divorce. Last spring she found herself in a custody battle with her ex-husband. Though the couple had split in 2001, they had never been able to put their feelings for each other aside and focus on the needs of their children.
In Cosse's case, her 12-year-old son was living with his father and the couple's 9-year-old daughter lived with Cosse. Because the couple avoided talking, Cosse often felt left out of her son's life. When they did talk, Cosse said the conversation was often, "explosive."
Cosse said it was almost easier to take their problems to court since that allowed her to avoid confrontation with her ex-husband. She knew it was not an optimum situation, but she didn't know what else to do. When her case was sent to mediation, the court recommended the Building New Beginnings program at ESCAPE.
"That was very powerful for me, I would highly recommend it," Cosse said.
The ESCAPE Family Resource Center was founded by the National Exchange Club in 1983. It is funded completely through private donations. Osadchey said an accepted fact is that children are harmed emotionally, psychologically and sometimes even physically because of the conflict between divorced parents. Parents whose divorces were already final often return to court over matters as serious as allegations of molestation and as frivolous as the length of a child's hair. In addition to tying up the court system, the legal actions most often miss the true source of trouble and leave children holding the bag.
Osadchey points out that millions of dollars are spent on rehabilitating people harmed because of divorce, but precious little funding are spent to prevent problems. That is why the ESCAPE Family Resource Center was born.
"It's a public health issue and it's a family situation," she said.
Osadchey said the program teaches parents to approach their child-rearing duties as a business partnership. Though they may no longer be man and wife, they are still co-parents. So, they should approach one another with the attitude that they will put the child's needs first. This includes training for children on how to handle stress and how to communicate with their parents.
"It's a family situation, we teach skills to everyone in the family," Osadchey said.
Cosse noticed a difference in her children very soon after she started the program. She and her daughter attended one class while her ex-husband and son attended another. Cosse said she and her former husband learned that everything from their tone of voice to the words they chose could either set up the circumstances for conflict or keep everything calm. They were taught to remember that they both have the same goal - properly rearing their children - and their personal issues should not interfere. In short, they learned what it means to be co-parents. She said she especially noticed a difference in her son, who had become withdrawn when he was with her.
"He doesn't have to be on guard. He has become more affectionate," she said.
Since the center opened, it has served 6,700 parents and children at 74 locations in Southeast Texas. Its list of services has expanded to include the challenges of single-parent homes, serious illness, grandparents raising children and dads who are in the legal system. Osadchey said that the program has been expanded recently to deal with cultural differences within families.
"What we've done is looked at the demographics in the greater Houston area and realized that we have a growing population of Hispanic and Asian immigrants and researched the challenges they face," she said.
Osadchey said they found a need to do more than make the programs bi-lingual. She said each program had to take into account the existing cultural differences.
"There is a serious issue of parenting in America that often comes into conflict with their own way of parenting," she said.
To address this problem, educators like Agnes Ho were brought on board to teach a program called "Cablispainian." Ho is a native of Hong Kong and earned her master's degree from the University of Houston. Since joining the center in January 2008, she has provided services to Houston's Asian community. She points out that privacy is very important to Asian families and, very often, family problems are hidden even from children. Ho has heard of cases in which divorced parents stayed in the same home, but slept in separate bedrooms to maintain the front of an intact home for their children.
Ho said that problems can be kept under wraps for weeks and even years. When they do come out, the effects can be disastrous. She said her job is to help families work through their issues while preserving their dignity.
"Asians keep these things inside the bottom of our hearts," Ho said. "We teach parents how to express our feelings."
Osadchey said that just as children are the losers in divorce, they are the winners at ESCAPE. She said the program reminds parents over and over again that their responsibilities as parents didn't end with their marriages.
"Your first and most important responsibility is to make a safe and wholesome home for your child," she said.