New Beginnings Program®

The New Beginnings Program is a 10-session program designed to promote effective parenting following family separation or divorce. The program teaches skills that help parents build positive and warm relationships, use open communication with children, employ effective discipline, and keep children out of the middle of conflict between their parents.

Research Behind the New Beginnings Program

The New Beginnings Program has been tested through careful research with hundreds of families over the past 25 years. The NBP has been rigorously evaluated in three randomized experimental trials. These trials demonstrated that it improved parenting and reduced children’s mental health problems. One of the trials included a follow-up assessment six years and 15 years after the families participated, when the offspring were 15 to 18 years old and 24 to 28 years old. The results showed positive program effects in adolescence. The adolescents in the program had 37% lower rates of diagnosed mental disorder, fewer mental health problems, and used less alcohol, marijuana and other drugs. They also had higher self-esteem and better grades.

Illustratively, 35% more of the adolescents whose parents were in the NBP had an A or B average in school compared to those in the control condition. Importantly, program effects to improve these outcomes occurred because of improvements in effective parenting that occurred during the program. At the 15-year follow-up, the NBP reduced the incidence of internalizing disorders, the number of sexual partners from adolescence to emerging adulthood and time spent in jail. For males, the NBP also reduced the number of substance use disorders from adolescence to emerging adulthood, current polydrug and other drug use, and recent substance use problems.

Cost savings analysis showed that the NBP led to an average savings in the one year preceding the 15-year follow-up of $1,630 per family. The NBP is considered a model program by Blueprints for Healthy Youth Development.

How long do the improvements last?

Fifteen years after the program, the young adults whose families participated in the program had fewer mental health and substance abuse problems than those whose families did not participate in the program. They also had less involvement with the criminal justice system.

Publications on the New Beginnings Program

• Herman, P. M., Mahrer, N. E., Wolchik, S. A., Porter, M. M., Jones, S., & Sandler, I. N. (2014). Cost-benefit analysis of a preventive intervention for divorced families: reduction in mental health and justice system service use costs 15 years later. Prevention Science, 1-11.
• Wolchik, S. A., Sandler, I. N., Tein, J.-Y., Mahrer, N. E.,Millsap, R. E., Winslow, E., & Reed, A. (2013). Fifteen year follow-up of a randomized trial of a preventive intervention for divorced families: Effects on mental health and substance use outcomes in young adulthood. Journal of Clinical and Consulting Psychology, 81,600–673.
• Wolchik, S.A., Sandler, I.N., Millsap, R.E., Plummer, B.A., Greene, S.M., Anderson, E.R., et al. (2002). Six-year follow-up of a randomized, controlled trial of preventive interventions for children of divorce. Journal of the American Medical Association, 288, 1-8