A JOURNEY OF FAITH

There’s no way around it: divorce is hard.

No party involved in a divorce escapes unscathed, especially the children. It’s no coincidence that January, which statistically sees high divorce filings, is also recognized as National Child-Centered Divorce Awareness Month, a time dedicated to alerting parents about the impact of divorce on their kids.

As a child, Lynn Cassella-Kapusinski, LCPC, NCC, remembers when her parents decided to split up. Raised in a Catholic family, Cassella-Kapusinski recalled wishing she had someone at her parish to talk to about parents’ separation.

“Growing up there were no programs being offered in the parish,” Cassella-Kapusinski said. “They could see my dad wasn’t going to church anymore and nobody in the parish reached out.”

Her own experience helped lay the groundwork for what would become Faith Journeys Foundation, Inc. Cassella-Kapusinski, president and founder of the nonprofit, created Faith Journeys to offer a Catholic-based model for mentoring children and adolescents going through parental separation.

“It’s a Catholic-based psychoeducational group,” she said. “It teaches specific skills and coping strategies to help prevent problems, but also incorporates faith and Church teachings so children can grow fully.”

The program, which has been recognized by Pope Benedict XVI, integrates Catholicism with psychological principles and personal experiences to help children heal and grow from divorce.

Faith Journeys is the only program for children of divorce in the U.S. with a focus on the Catholic faith. Cassella-Kapusinski should know: she wrote the curriculum after seeing the industry was lacking a Catholic point of view.

“There’s nothing out there except our program from a Catholic perspective,” she said.

After starting the foundation in 2001, Cassella-Kapusinski had to pause her work and go back to school: “I realized I needed some skills to really help these kids more effectively,” she said. Cassella-Kapusinski enrolled at Loyola University in Maryland for her second master’s in pastoral counseling. The counselor already obtained her undergrad in English from the University of Notre Dame and a master’s in fine arts and writing from Vermont College.

Now up and running, the foundation has been offering group sessions for the past several years. Based out of Baltimore, Md., Faith Journeys is currently offered in parishes and Catholic schools around the country. Cassella-Kapusinski, a part-time resident of Hullett’s Landing near Lake George, is hoping to expand her curriculum to as many parishes and schools as she can.

“It’s designed to develop their understanding (of divorce) and deepen their faith as a supportive resource,” she said. “You don’t have to be Catholic but it addresses Catholic teaching and it gives children that safe space apart from their parents where they can express their feelings, identify them, share what problems they’re having, and learn some tools and skills — whether communication skills or problem-solving — to address those problems.”

According to Pew Research, 25 percent of American Catholic adults have gone through a divorce, and roughly a third are currently remarried. Among all divorced U.S. Catholics, only about a quarter say they or their former spouse have sought an annulment from the Catholic Church.
Cassella-Kapusinski hopes her program will help bridge the divide often felt between divorced Catholics, their children and the Church, and show that the religion is there to support them, not shame them.

“(The Church) is doing better but they’re not reaching out to those families. … I think that’s why we lost so many divorced Catholic families because there’s no outreach,” she said. “That concerns me.”

With her mother’s insistence, Cassella-Kapusinski continued to attend church after her parents’ divorce, despite her anger about the situation. “I felt alienated by God,” she said. In the end, it was her faith that helped carry her through hard times, and without that support in her life, Cassella-Kapusinski worries about what would have become of her.

“I’m of the bias that you can’t get through this without — whatever your religion is — the help of your faith,” she said.

Over the summer, Cassella-Kapusinski and her team entered Faith Journeys in the national OSV Challenge, a multi-round entrepreneurial competition held by the OSV Institute for Catholic Innovation. Out of over 600 entries, Faith Journeys made it to the semifinals with 24 other businesses. Despite not making it to the finals, Cassella-Kapusinski was proud to have made it as far as they did. “To make the cut to that part, it was very affirming that they felt this is needed in the Church,” she said.

Added Cassella-Kapusinski: “I think you can get a lot of angry divorced Catholics and the Church has to uphold its teaching … but this is why we need to show these families in a tangible way that the Church cares for them, not just giving lip service to them.”

For more information, visit https://www.faithjourneys.org/ .