Our Family In Two Homes Workbook

I’ve been using an innovative Workbook in both my legal & mediation practice called Our Family In Two Homes.

Separation and Divorce can be overwhelming to many families – most people have never embarked on this process and don’t know where to get started.

There are 3 parts to the Workbook:

1. Foundations of effective co-parenting – working on things like trust, communication, conflict style – it helps you to reflect on you and your co-parent’s style to help work towards effective relationship going forward for your kids’ sake.  It’s the stuff that many co-parents don’t like or want to work on, but my clients who work on these foundational issues are more likely to have an effective co-parenting relationship.
2. Workbook – asks the various questions you will need to consider as you formalize your separation.  It gives you a foreshadowing to the questions and issues that you and I will need to discuss, and it gives you an opportunity to consider the issues without being on the hourly clock.
3. Province-specific legal information – I have a version of the workbook for each province that I work in – Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Northwest Territories.  It provides the basics of what you’ll need to know in separation & divorce – how to build a parenting plan, how does child & spousal support work (what are the guidelines) and how does division of assets & debts work.  It will help you to avoid Dr. Google giving information which can steer you in every which direction.

We know that the most sustainable way to make decisions is to have time to think through your answers, and to “sleep on it”.   Our Family In Two Homes Workbook allows you to think through, in the comfort of your own home, how you would like your future to look co-parenting in two homes.

This isn’t a do-it-yourself separation – this is a package which includes 1 Workbook (or in the case of mediation, 2 Workbooks) plus3 hours of time with me – this allows us to pinpoint the tough issues where you need assistance to negotiate.

Some of my clients choose to share all of their Workbook pages with me, and others keep their responses in the “foundations” parts to themselves, while others choose to engage with their co-parent which may be the ultimate in working together to gain a deeper understanding of how to work together effectively.  The important thing is the fact of introspecting, not who it is shared with.  One of the efficiencies created by the Workbook is to be able to share the “workbook” part – which is the variety of questions that I will need your responses to in order to draft your Separation Agreement or to draft our proposal to your former spouse or their lawyer.  It’s amazing the time savings created when my clients have spent so much time doing their homework!

My goal in working with families is to find these efficiencies which keeps your invoice as low as it can be, while actually creating more effective co-parents along the way!

If you think that the Workbook may be a resource for you, please contact my office for more details.