Press Release |
Circuit Court of Cook County Chief Judge Timothy C. Evans and Domestic Relations Division Presiding Judge Grace G. Dickler announced the court today will begin offering court ordered parenting education classes online through a new interactive program, Children in Between Online (CIBO) at http://online.divorce-education.com.
Parents without custody issues in the court’s Domestic Relations Division, who are either divorced or never married, will now have a choice between taking court-ordered parenting classes either through the online CIBO program or through the traditional classroom format, Focus on Children, presented by the court’s Marriage and Family Counseling Service at several court locations.
Chief Judge Evans said, “Parenting education is a valuable tool that can help families going through child custody proceedings to achieve positive outcomes. By adding a convenient online program, the court is making parenting education more accessible to parents in both low- and high-conflict cases.”
Evans noted the online CIBO course, available in English and Spanish eliminates the necessity of parents having to miss work or incurring the additional expenses of traveling and parking to attend a Focus on Children class.
Presiding Judge Dickler said while there are no projections on how many parents will take the online CIBO course, she expects it to be a popular choice because it will be accessible twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. In 2012, around 4,800 parents attended the Focus on Children classroom program.
“Our judges and Marriage and Family Counseling Service staff are extremely excited about being able to offer low-conflict litigants an online alternative to Focus on Children. We foresee it having a dramatic impact on the Domestic Relations Division’s parenting education program,” said Presiding Judge Dickler. She noted that offering the online program will also open up more space in the Focus on Children class, so parents in more contentious cases can attend the program sooner.
Illinois law requires judges to order parents, except for good cause shown, to attend a court approved parenting education program in all dissolution of marriage/civil union cases which involve a minor child and in all parentage (paternity) cases.
The online parenting education option was made possible thanks to a change in circuit court local rules adopted by the Circuit Court of Cook County circuit judges. The cost of the online CIBO course is $39.95 per parent. The fee may be waived at the discretion of the court.
The Focus on Children program was started 1994 by the Domestic Relations Division of the Circuit Court of Cook County. A groundbreaking parenting education program, it was one of the first programs of its kind to address the effects that divorce and separation have on children. Judges have found the program to be extremely successful. Demand for Focus on Children has grown since the enactment of the Illinois Supreme Court Rule 900 Series in 2006, which requires parents with cases involving minor children to attend a parenting education program.
CIBO was developed by The Center for Divorce Education, a nonprofit corporation founded in 1987 which works with parents to minimize the harmful effects of divorce or separation on children. Similar to Cook County’s Focus on Children program, CIBO is an interactive program that provides parents with information and skills to promote healthy communication with each other and their children. CIBO is currently used by many different court systems throughout the country and has been proven to reduce the amount of litigation and conflict between parents who complete the program.
Additional information about CIBO can be found under the Domestic Relations Division section on the Circuit Court of Cook County’s website at www.cookcountycourt.org.
For more information:
Chief Judge Timothy C. Evans: (312) 603-6000
Domestic Relations Division Presiding Judge Grace G. Dickler: (312) 603-6556
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