Postseparation parenting education in a family relationship centre: a pilot study exploring the impact on perceived parent-child relationship and acrimony

This research investigated whether 31 parents who attended the Sydney City Family Relationship Centre experienced improvement in parent-child relationship and a decrease in parental acrimony following a brief postseparation parenting education program. It was hypothesized that the results would indicate an improvement in parents' perceived parent-child relationship six to ten weeks after the postseparation parenting education program and this was found to be the case. It was also hypothesized that parents would experience a decrease in parental acrimony six to ten weeks after the postseparation parenting education program. However the results did not support this hypothesis. The results indicated an inverse relationship between the constructs of interest; as acrimony decreased, parent-child relationship improved. Findings from this pilot study endorse the continuation of a brief postseparation parenting education component in the FRC model. Implications for future research are discussed.