Positive Relationships: Divorce - Separate ways

New workshops aiming to help parents manage the impact of divorce or separation on their children are being piloted throughout the UK.

One in three children will see their parents split up before they are 16 years old. Parental separation can be an incredibly troubling and stressful ordeal for children and it is often a difficult issue for parents to discuss with them, sometimes leading to children getting overlooked. The 'Parenting After Parting' workshops aim to place children's well-being high on the agenda.

The workshops have been launched by Resolution, an association for family lawyers, after it was noted that support for families experiencing divorce in the UK was inconsistent. Only patchy services were provided by locally based initiatives. Chief executive of Resolution Karen MacKay says, 'Our members deal with divorce and separation on a daily basis. We try to promote non-confrontational dispute resolution for family disputes and encourage solutions that consider the needs of the whole family, in particular the best needs of the children. A lot of people know where to go for a divorce lawyer but do not know how to access other services and how to get help when supporting their children. We wanted to have something that our members could refer clients to that was of a consistent and reliable quality.'