‘Banana Splitz helped me to talk about my feelings’: Evaluation of the AnglicareSA Banana Splitz Parenting Orders Program

There are approximately 2 divorces per 1,000 residents each year in Australia and of these, close to half involve children under 18 years. Parental separation and divorce is known to affect children, yet evidence suggests it need not lead to long-term adverse effects on children if both parents and children are supported by evidence-based interventions. AnglicareSA has been delivering Parenting Orders Programs (POP) in a group format to mitigate negative effects of parental separation on children and young people since 2006. The KidsAreFirst (KAF) adult program is designed to encourage and support parents to both recognise the effects of conflict on their children and to reduce conflict when co-parenting to support their children. The Banana Splitz group program (BSP) directly supports children aged 5 to 12 who are experiencing parental separation. A third program, Making a Difference (MAD), supports young people aged 13 to 17.
This report provides the findings of our evaluation of the BSP for children of separated parents, providing commentary on program activities and outcomes. We have also recently evaluated the Parenting Orders KAF group program for adults (see McKinley et al. 2024). The BSP has been operating since 2006 and is delivered to approximately 80 children of separated or divorced parents per year. The evidence-based program was initially developed to reduce the adverse short- and long- term effects of parental conflict, separation and divorce on children at that time. Over the years, the program has evolved in response to participant feedback and facilitator experiences but has never been independently evaluated. The project reported on herein sought to evaluate BSP activities and outcomes in terms of the current evidence of good practice, also combining child and facilitator perspectives on their experiences of the program.
Research objectives
This project evaluates the effectiveness of BSP in terms of:
1. Current evidence regarding good practice in supporting children of divorced parents;
2. The extent to which it is meeting its stated program aims; and,
3. Whether there any unexpected outcomes.
The evaluation answers the following research questions:
• What is the current evidence for good practice in group work programs for children of separated/divorced parents?
• What works well and what needs to change?
• Is the program meeting its current aims according to the most relevant short- and long-term impacts/outcomes from the KAF logic:
o improved ability for children to make sense of their world
o improved resilience for children
o increased awareness of services/support
o improved confidence in accessing services/support
Methods
To answer our research questions, we undertook a literature review to gain an understanding of the current evidence, a focus group with five AnglicareSA staff and an interview with one additional staff member involved in delivering BSP, and observation of a focus group held by AnglicareSA for children who had attended the program in 2024.

Key findings
Overwhelmingly, we found that children participating in BSP enjoyed the experience and expressed that the program was helpful in a number of ways. The program aligns with current evidence and, insofar as our data could demonstrate, is meeting its current aims in terms of relevant program logic short-term impacts. In particular, children from the sample included in this report expressed that the program helped them understand that their parents’ separation was not their fault, suggesting that the program helped them to make sense of their world. Resilience is somewhat difficult to measure, however, data from children and facilitators indicate that program participants increase their awareness of and confidence to access services or support, and there is some indication that this confidence continues post-program.
Children’s feedback surveys indicate that more than half were able to speak with their mothers about difficult things more easily after attending BSP, but not their fathers. This may reflect the high rates of domestic violence among families involved in the POP, and that domestic violence is overwhelmingly perpetrated by men against women (Department of Social Services 2018). The KAF report suggests that fathers may be less likely to change behaviour during or following participation in that program (McKinley et al. 2024).
Many children who provided feedback enjoyed the group context, and some felt it helped them realise that they were not alone through the experience of spending time with other children in similar circumstances to themselves. Facilitator perspectives, gained through their experience of working with many groups of children, aligned with and built on the children’s expressed experiences.
Our findings have not produced any evidence that BSP requires changing beyond continued updating based on existing, ongoing reflection and feedback. Rather, our findings suggest that this program could benefit many more children experiencing parental separation and divorce, and so we would encourage AnglicareSA to consider ways to expand the program to make it more accessible. This is particularly the case in light of findings that post-separation conflict between parents, more than the separation itself, has profound impacts on children. The BSP goes some way to mitigate this when coupled with parents attending the KAF program.