Supporting children when working with separating parents – part one

Each year, many Australian children experience the separation or divorce of their parents or primary caregivers. Many parents navigate separation in ways that take care of children’s mental health and wellbeing, without assistance from family dispute resolution services or specialist counselling services.

However, separating families commonly come into contact with a range of practitioners during separation, so it’s important that all practitioners have the understanding and skills to support parents and children during this time.

In this first episode of our three-part series, we discuss the importance of supporting parents’ own wellbeing during relationship separation, and some ways to go about doing this. Not only is this important in itself, it is also vital in supporting the wellbeing of children.

You’ll hear from experienced post-separation practitioners Alesha Akintoye, Clare Daly, Helen McMullan and Roxanne Nathan about how they go about supporting parents to support children’s wellbeing. We also speak with Alan, Jamie, Jocelyn and Vanya, four of Emerging Minds’ Family Partners, who share insights from their lived experience of navigating relationship separation.

In this episode you’ll learn:

• the importance of ensuring parents understand how influential they are in their child’s experience of separation [02:02]
• the importance of supporting parents’ own wellbeing during separation, and its links to children’s wellbeing [09:52]
• practices for opening up conversations with parents about their wellbeing [14:24]

Further information and resources from Emerging Minds:

Supporting children’s mental health when working with separating parents online course

Positive post-separation parenting podcast

How to speak with separating parents about their children’s wellbeing practice paper

Working with separating parents to support children’s wellbeing: What can we learn from evidence-based programs? practice paper