Home - TheRiddler401/DECO3500-Mental-Wealth GitHub Wiki

About 50,000 to 60,000 children in Australia experience their parents separating each year (3310.0 - Marriages and Divorces, 2018), hence this is a social issue that pervades society. The lack of or negative intra-family communication and connection is linked to negative coparenting and negative impacts on the offspring's mental health (Lawrence et al, 2011). There are many associated risk factors that lead to family instability and are consequences of family break-up - for example, lower socio-economic status and parental conflict. There are already existing controls for such confounds that reduce these consequences; however they do not eliminate the risks tied to parental divorces.

This project aims to further the understanding of communication between divorced parents and its impact on shared offspring’s (ages 10 - 25) mental health. More specifically, the project explores the ways positive or neutral communication can be increased to positively affect the offspring’s wellbeing. This will be done through in-depth online research, interviews, and prototyping testing sessions on people who have had experience in this field. It is important to acknowledge interactions between parents and children must remain placing the child’s wellbeing at the forefront of resolution. Furthermore, this project aims to gain insight on the topic and investigate insights and potential social technologies that can be created to tackle these situations.