Support for separated and separating parents

You may take a while to sort through the disagreements that came with the separation. Get all the support you need to sort it through, as early as possible to avoid any long-lasting damage to the relation with your co-parent and most importantly, your child(ren).

By the age of sixteen 42% of children do not live with both their biological parents, which demonstrates the number of families that will be in a similar position to yourselves. Divorce or separation is not always detrimental to the well-being of the child – as long as this is managed well.

Parental Responsibility

Read more around parental rights and responsibilities.

You should not make accusations towards the other parent or report any accusations towards services if they are not true or necessary as this could cause further detriment and unwanted stress for your child.

“Co-parenting is not a competition. It’s a collaboration of two homes working together with the best interest of the child at heart. Work for your kids, not against them.” - Heather Hetchler

Courses

Strengthening Families, Strengthening Communities

Stronger relationships courses is a free 6-week online course that incorporates both live facilitated group sessions with an experienced parenting team member, as well as set online tasks that can be completed in your own time. The course explores various aspects of everyday interactions, fostering better relationships and improving outcomes for children.

The Write Time Take Charge Course

This free 6-week course is designed for parents facing challenges with a child who has additional needs and parents that long for a harmonious family life filled with understanding, connection, and growth. Over 6 weeks, the team will support parents/carers with mentoring and counselling aimed at strengthening relationships and embracing Choice Theory and Reality Therapy. Parents/carers can self-refer here.

Fegans

This free course shares practical parenting tools, using short engaging videos, to improve your confidence and relationship with your child, now and for the future.
This course will help parents to:

learn how to build a positive relationship with their child
understand the causes of difficult child behaviour
learn behaviour management
look after themselves

AI Chat Bots

These chatbots are trained using clinically approved documents and safeguarding information. They detect safeguarding concerns and direct users to appropriate support. Local Authorities and frontline practitioners can integrate these tools to enhance co-parenting support. Access the tools We can Relate to parental conflict.

The Co-Parenting Bot:
Share what you’re going through and get answers, support, and advice to help you get through conflicts with your partner or co-parent.

The In the Middle Bot:
Do conversations with you and your partner or co-parent often turn into arguments? Do you wonder how your child is coping? Are you worried about the impact that the contact is having on your family?

The ‘In the Middle Bot’ is a chatbot that’s trained on how your child experiences your relationships. With a small amount of information and zero judgment from us, you can get insight into how your child might be feeling.

The Sounding Board Bot:
Need some help in writing a response to a WhatsApp or text message?

‘Separating Better’ App

Designed for all parents in the consideration or early stage of separation, this self-managed digital intervention resource provides effective ways to assess emotional readiness, understand finances as a solo parent, improve co-parenting communication, and make practical childcare arrangements.

This child-centric app provides essential guidance on co-parenting and managing disagreements and has been designed with the wellbeing of the family in mind.

This app includes:

An emotional readiness assessment to determine a parent’s readiness for the separation process.
A personalised parenting plan with co-parenting agreement options to help shape the practicalities in a parent’s life post-separation.
A budget planner to help parents gain control of their finances as a new co-parent and to plan ahead for any shared or split expenses for the children.
Work it out scenario videos to help identify any poor communication skills or disagreements between co-parents and demonstrate how to improve upon them.
Expert advice and guidance articles on a wide range of separation topics, from communication and living arrangements to finances and practical legal advice.

Available on IOS and Android.

Mediation

Family mediators help you to turn your arguments into agreements to help you make decisions for the future, to enable you to move on with your lives. It helps you focus on the issues affecting both of you, for example, parenting, property and money, and what to do about it all now that you are separated. Family mediation is faster, cheaper and less stressful than going to court to try to reach agreements on issues connected to your divorce or separation.

The Ministry of Justice has launched a voucher scheme which will provide a contribution of up to £500 towards the mediation costs for eligible cases, supporting people in resolving their family law disputes outside of court, where appropriate.

A significant number of individuals may be eligible for the voucher scheme, so it is worth attempting mediation in the first instance. The law also states that you must consider whether mediation can help you before you can take a case to court too.

There is often a cost for an initial assessment, but some mediators will have an initial informal chat with families at no cost to ensure their service is right for them. If it is suitable, the mediator will complete and send off the eligibility forms for the voucher scheme with the consent from the family.

The £500 voucher will then cover a number of sessions after the initial assessment with the mediator. It is then up to each individual family if they would like to continue their sessions at their own cost following these.

If you (or at least one parent) is in receipt of universal credit or similar, you may be entitled to Legal aid, this would also cover the second party for some of the mediation process.

Get in touch with our local mediators:

Mediators that cover Cheshire East:

Talk, Listen, Change

Mediation@talklistenchange.org.uk

Mediators at Talk Listen Change conduct sessions online via Microsoft teams or in-person at various locations in the Northwest. In the Cheshire East area, they currently have a location in Crewe.

Jules Rendall
julian.rendall@venturemediation.co.uk

Online mediation sessions only.

Jen Rumble
Family Mediation admin@yourmediator.co.uk
Until December Jen is only offering online video appointments, however, in 2025, will be offering face to face sessions in Macclesfield, Stockport, and Chester.

5 top tips from CAFCASS for anyone going through separation

Cleaning up the conflict
Legal advice versus legal action
Separating your spouse, not your child’s other parent
Permission and support for safe relationships with both
Don't drag it out

Cleaning up the conflict

You may take a while to sort through the conflict that came with the separation. Get all the support you need to sort it through, as early as possible attend a Mediation Service. While you are in the thick of parenting decisions and settlements, your children shouldn’t be. Reassure them you are working to resolve things.

Legal advice versus legal action

Many parents benefit from the advice of lawyers, to inform them about their rights and responsibilities in making parenting plans and resolving financial settlements. Be aware that getting legal advice is very different from taking legal action. Court processes are necessary for a small percent of the population who have serious risks and issues that cannot be resolved otherwise. Research shows that engaging in court can do further and long term damage to your relationship with the child’s other parent.
Take good legal advice, but try to minimise the need for legal action

Separating your spouse, not your child’s other parent

Building a parenting alliance with your ex partner is crucial to your child’s emotional security after separation. That doesn’t mean being best friends, but it does mean agreeing on how to communicate safely and effectively about your child’s needs. Enlist the support of a good mediator if that is hard to achieve on your own.

Permission and support for safe relationships with both

Despite the acrimony that many parents feel for each other during the divorce process, most children want to keep their relationships with each parent and need support to do that. Loyalty conflicts are common when children see and feel a lack of respect and co-operation between their parents. Worse still is the child who survives emotionally by distancing one parent in order to keep sides with the other. Effective management of the adult emotions involved means everything for children’s well-being, especially their need to preserve supportive relationships with both parents.

Don't drag it out

Child Arrangements

When you and your child’s other parent/carer cannot agree on child arrangements, this plan works by one parent (you) starting a plan and making some suggestions before sending your proposal to your co-parent. This process can continue until you reach agreement over some, most, or all areas. The parenting plan can be downloaded and shared with relevant professionals and your children themselves if necessary. If you do go to court in the future, it is very likely that judges will expect you to have started a parenting plan.

Parenting Plan - Cafcass - Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service

There are lots of free, useful resources, information and advice that can be found on the CAFCASS website

Contact Centres

The National Association of Child Contact Centres
More than a million children have no contact whatsoever with one of their parents after separation. Unfortunately, due to this some children experience behavioural issues including antisocial behaviour, distress, unhappiness, and both physical and emotional problems. NACCC is the only charity in the UK dedicated to solving this problem by providing safe spaces where children can meet the parents they don’t live with.

Free Support Services

Fegans offer a free online course for parenting after separation

Amicable offer useful divorce guides, tips and support. Also contains a free app for goal setting and producing a parenting plan with your ex-partner. Amicable offer a free 15-minute consultation call. If you do go ahead with legal proceedings, there is additional costs.

Advicenow recognise the hard reality that getting help from a solicitor is financially difficult or impossible for many people. So, they aim to help you with the knowledge, skills and confidence that you need to navigate your way through, to a happier future.

Coram Children's Legal Centre and Child Law Advice Service provides free online and over the phone legal advice and information on child and family issues.

Gingerbread offer online advice, support and information around some of the most common topics single parents ask about.

Relate offers an extensive range of self-help resources are available for free. Relate offer face-to-face and online counselling and mediation across Cheshire East at a cost.

See it differently offer online videos of scenarios of parents in conflict and then how they approach issues differently.

Family Lives offer online support and advice to families around divorce, shared parenting, relationship advice, step-parents, single parents and family life.

Onlymums and Onlydads are separate websites that support parents who are looking to make the best decisions for their family during separation and divorce.

Match Mothers is a charity that offers non-judgemental support and information to mothers apart from their children in a wide variety of circumstances

Citizens Advice are a charity that provide a free and confidential service to everyone in the community, covering issues such as family life and separation.

South Cheshire Clasp provide free face to face and over the phone support for single parents/stepparent families – including one to one counselling sessions for both children and their parents and short parenting courses.

Free Co-parenting Apps

Cozi - Create shared calendars and to-do lists, share photos and recipes with family, and communicate with your co-parent. It’s easy to use and completely free (with ads). While not strictly a co-parenting app, it has everything you need to organize family schedules between two homes

Famcal - A calendar and scheduling app that lets separated families share events, tasks, and notes, all from one convenient place. We like the colour-coded organizer that identifies each family member. The free version is very basic and you need to upgrade to premium to access

MyMob - The totally free co-parenting app created by Stepfamilies Australia and Drummond Street Services. It comes with a shared calendar, contacts storage, wish lists, messaging with profanity filter, and a virtual fridge to post photos and notes. Many separated families use it because of court mandates.

Appclose - Completely free co-parenting app that has tools normally found only on paid apps. It lets you organize schedules and communicate with family members via the messaging feature. You can also create a shared parenting plan and track and settle payments.

Time Tree - One of the simplest co-parenting apps on our list. It’s easy to organize family, school and work schedules and communicate with family members. You can chat right from the event calendar, share notes and lists, and create multiple schedules.

Cheshire East Healthy Relationships Team

For further information, support or advice please contact the healthy relationships team at Cheshire East, pop into your local Children’s Centre/Family Hub or call the Family Help Front Door on 0300 123 5012 (option 3, option 1) for an informal discussion.

Disclaimer

Cheshire East’s Healthy Relationships Programme does not promote nor endorse the services advertised on this website. Anyone seeking to use/access such services does so at their own risk and should make all appropriate enquiries about fitness for purpose and suitability to meet their needs.

Page last reviewed: 27 August 2024

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