De EPOD Study - een evidence-based beleid voor de optimalisatie van de echtscheiding trajecten in Vlaanderen: naar hogere post-echtscheiding kwaliteit van leven

In the present project, complementary to the traditional line of research, we will not only focus on outcomes, but also and in particular on processes set in motion by divorce, respecting the self-determination of divorcing partners and their children. Two main reasons give rise to this research focus. First, top-down reasoning has been fundamentally criticised in other research fields, calling for research that incorparates process variables. To be excact, we clearly need research that adopts a 'developmental' perspective, considering divorce as a process, a transition, and stressing the transformation and change it evokes in parents, children and the parent-child relationship. Indeed, the divorce process has psychosocial, legal and economic aspects that interact at every phase. The focus of this project on the divorce process (from input over divorce trajectory to final output in terms of quality of life) therefore requires fundamental multidiciplinary research that is currently anything but present. Second, as the divorce patterns are changing, the divorce profession is too. From our numerous discussions with divorce professionals from different disciplines as well as from training of divorce professionals, it became clear that an improvement of practice and assessment standards can and should be made as the discipline evolves.