Coparenting Alliance
Welcomes You
Education for individuals who are coparenting through separation, divorce, or other shared caregiving arrangements.
EVERY FAMILY IS SPECIAL
Although there are some basics for every family situation, there are a wide variety of circumstances for families dealing with legal issues. Some parents and caregivers have never married, some are same-sex couples, some are dealing with substance misuse or abuse, violence, and mental health issues.
The Coparenting Alliance program teaches general skills and provides extended resources for family members to solve their unique challenges.
A Holistic Approach
Emotional health. Anger, love, sadness, and other emotions influence parents' ability to effectively coparent. A healthy coparenting relationship is not likely when one is not addressing their emotional health.
Legal processes. Many parents and caregivers are coping with confusing legal terms and court or mediation processes, and it is stressful for them.
Financial health. Those who are divorcing or separating divide assets, money, and or property; some are managing budgets for the first time in their lives, and could use financial education resources.
Coparenting health. Cooperative coparenting helps children in times of transition, such as a divorce. Parents benefit from positive communication strategies, as well as an awareness of common setbacks and frustrations and how their child(ren) might act or react and different ages and stages.
Social health. Many individuals experiences changes in friends, family, and their social identities when going through a divorce or separation. Some engage in behaviors that can be harmful to their physical health in effort to cope.
Coparenting alliance addresses all of these issues, as well as those relevant to families with special circumstances (e.g., military challenges, abuse, addiction, grandparents raising grandchildren, and incarceration).
What is Coparenting Alliance?
Coparenting Alliance is a nonprofit organization created to help divorcing, separating, or transitioning parents who have children under the age of 18. This program in both face to face and online formats and focuses on a variety of issues that have been linked to parents' adjustments through divorce processes (i.e., Dr. Paul Bohannon's sex stations which include the emotional, legal, economic, coparental, community, and psychic aspects of divorce). Research has shown that children fare better when parents work together to cooperate and minimize conflict. Yet, it's critical that the content be meaningful to parents and comprehensively cover issues that impact their own, as well as their children's physical, emotional, social, and spiritual health through this period of transition. As such, the curriculum holistically recognizes parents' own emotional turmoil and health through the transition to coparenting apart as a critical aspect of facilitating healthy children and divorced families.
"At Coparenting Alliance, we recognize that divorce is one of the most stressful transitions that impact families in extraordinary ways. We also believe that there are strengths in all family types and that individuals and families can thrive through the divorce. It's well documented that children adjust better when parents work together to cooperate and minimize conflict. Yet, simply providing strategies for healthy coparenting is not helpful for parents unless they also have awareness, knowledge, and resources for addressing their own physical, emotional, social, and spiritual health. As such, we recognize all elements of health as a critical aspect of facilitating healthy children and families."
-Jill Rennels Bowers, PhD
President and CEO
