More than 220 supporters of Scarborough-based nonprofit KidsFirst Center attended a Sugarbox benefit concert and auction May 8 at Aura in downtown Portland that raised $50,000 to continue providing co-parenting education to all Mainers, regardless of ability to pay.

“This is our major annual fundraiser, and it supports our core curriculum of courses, our workshops for professionals, and our KidsFirst for Kids program we just started again,” said board president Jen Pallozzi. “We are anticipating that some of our grants may be at risk, and the divorce rate hasn’t slowed.”

Across all 16 Maine counties, 1,400 parents and their 2,700 children benefited from KidsFirst programs in 2024.

Whitney Lallas, a family law attorney with event sponsor MillerAsen, said, “We see a lot of high-conflict parents going through divorce, and it’s really important to teach parents how to cope with one another and handle issues. That’s what KidsFirst does.”

In addition to lawyers, event guests included KidsFirst volunteers, board members, corporate sponsors, therapists, social workers and others whose lives have been touched by divorce.

Karen MacDonald, whose parents divorced when she was 7, is a licensed clinical social worker who co-facilitates KidsFirst classes with a family law attorney. “Kids can handle divorce and separation, but they can’t handle conflict,” she said. “So, we teach parents how to minimize conflict and work through conflict in a respectful manner.”

In addition to a court-ordered nine-week program for parents in high-conflict divorces, KidsFirst offers classes for parents learning foundational co-parenting skills, for kids whose parents are divorced or separated, and for women whose have experienced domestic violence or abuse.

KidsFirst also provides training for lawyers, social workers, physicians and teachers. A professional conference planned for this fall will evaluate the strategies of co-parenting and parallel parenting.

“Co-parenting isn’t the only model,” said family law attorney Chris Leddy of Ainsworth, Thelin & Raftice. “Some people are very uncomfortable speaking with their ex-spouses or ex-partners. That means that when we change the model to parallel parenting, we can affect more people and make things better for more kids.”

Amy Paradysz is a freelance writer and photographer based in Scarborough. She can be reached at amyparadysz@gmail.com.