What is SMILE?
SMILE - Start Making It Livable for Everyone - is an educational program for separating or divorced parents with children under the age of eighteen. This program, along with all of the FOC programs, are held on the Third Floor of the Friend of the Court Office.

Click here for directions.

The goals of the SMILE program are:

• To provide information to help parents better understand the effects of divorce.
• To help parents understand the needs of their children.
• To promote children's healthy adjustment to divorce.

The information that will be provided to you at the SMILE program presentation has been drawn from the experience of the developers of the SMILE program, and other professionals in the field of divorce.

Each year over one million marriages end in divorce in the United States. When divorce happens, some people feel alone and wonder how anyone else lived through it. SMILE will provide information about the effects of divorce and what parents can do to make the divorce situation livable.

SMILE is important because:

• It provides information to help parents better understand the effects of divorce.
• It assists parents to understand the needs of their children.
• It helps parents learn what they can do to create a nurturing and safe environment so that their children can recover from the divorce and feel good about themselves.
• It provides information to prevent destructive game-playing that is so common among divorced couples and their children.
• It helps parents gain problem solving skills.
• It lets parents know that they are not alone.
• It helps parents know how to be in touch with their children's pain and anguish.
• It shows parents how to stop making children victims of the divorce.

SMILE 2009 PROGRAM DATES ARE:

Smile program dates that do not include a specific morning time occur in the evening. Smile evening programs take place from 6:30PM to 8:30 PM.

While the SMILE program dates noted above are published on this website, attendance at a SMILE program is dependent upon the Court ordering parents involved in a new divorce action to attend.

If you have not received a notice or letter that requires you to attend the SMILE program,you should not attend without receiving authorization to do so from the Jackson County Friend of the Court office.For questions about the SMILE program, contact the Jackson County Friend of the Court office at (517) 788-4470.