MULTIMEDIA DIVORCE EDUCATION FOR LATINO PARENTS

This Phase I application proposes development of the DivorceCARE en Espanol, an interactive, multimedia-based prevention strategy designed to help Spanish-speaking parents facilitate their children's effective postdivorce adjustment. The program is conceptualized as a critical addition to the larger Divorce Child Adjustment Resource & Education (DivorceCARE) program, a NIDA-funded suite of divorce-related multimedia prevention programs currently under development at lnflexxion. Court sponsored divorce education programs are mandated in more than 45 states throughout the country. Yet, currently none of the available programs are offered in Spanish or are tailored to the needs of Latino parents. As a result, Latino parents with little English-speaking abilities are typically exempted from the court mandate and left without options for obtaining important divorce-related intervention services. To address this issue, DivorceCARE en Espanol will be a Latino-sensitive program offered in Spanish. Phase I will define the components of the program, outline the companion Website and program manual, develop prototypes of the computer interface, and produce and test a demo CD-ROM. Phase II involves completion of the program and a field test to demonstrate efficacy and product satisfaction.