• Children whose rejection is reasonable, proportionate to and warranted by the history of the child’s relationship with the rejected parent
• Families in which the court finds that the rejected parent is incapable of exercising custodial responsibilities, such as parents with severe physical illnesses
• Families in which children who reject a parent will continue to spend most of their time away from that parent, or who will be with the rejected parent only for a short period of time before returning to the home of the favored parent. If, for instance, a rejected parent will see a child only during school vacation periods, Family Bridges is probably not a good fit for this situation.

Often a parent, attorney, or judge hopes Family Bridges can resolve a custody dispute by repairing a damaged parent-child relationship in a situation that fails to meet the enrollment prerequisites or when the favored parent maintains custody and significant residential time with the child or will resume custody upon completion of the workshop. Unfortunately, this program is not designed for such circumstances and usually is not offered in these circumstances.

In selected cases when the standard enrollment criteria are not met, Family Bridges may be offered to families with irrationally alienated children when there is good reason to believe that the family can benefit from the program. The workshop has had some success with families that did not meet the standard enrollment criteria. An example might be a family in which a child’s relationship with a parent is damaged to a less severe degree, but the child’s negative attitudes and behavior toward the parent are not a reasonable and proportionate response to that parent’s behavior toward the child.