Supporting children’s mental health when working with separating parents

Download a printable summary of the Supporting children’s mental health when working with separating parents course

Parents are highly influential in how children experience parental separation and the impact on their everyday lives. Although difficult, parental separation doesn’t have to be distressing or traumatic for children. As a practitioner, you are well-placed to improve the experience of children and families when parents are going through separation or divorce by making children’s wellbeing a central aspect of the conversations that you have together.

This course outlines the potential impacts of relationship separation on parents and their children, with a focus on children’s mental health and wellbeing. It introduces four key aspects of practice, including:

• Supporting parents’ wellbeing
• Supporting parenting and the parent-child relationship
• Supporting parents to support their children; and
• Supporting children through parental separation.

By providing parents with practical strategies to support their children, you can reduce the impacts of separation on child and family mental health and wellbeing.

This course is intended to support a broad range of practitioners in health, social and community services who have contact with parents during separation and divorce, but who work outside of specialist family dispute resolution and related counselling services.

It recognises that practitioners who are not trained in family dispute resolution or counselling – including GPs, social workers, allied health professionals and teachers – often have contact with parents during separation. Sometimes, they are the first or only impartial people that separating parents see during this period. They have an important role in supporting parents, the parent–child relationship, and children’s mental health and wellbeing.

It is estimated that this course will take you approximately two hours to complete, including reading material, watching videos and completing the reflection activities.

You can undertake the course across multiple sessions at your own pace. The last screen you visit before logging off will be bookmarked and you will have the option of returning to that screen when you next log in.