We can enable our clients to:
Find ways to preserve relationships that mean the most to them
Who We Are
Personal Collaborative Divorce Coach Peggy Thompson
Since 1993, I have worked with Dr. Nurse and other like-minded professionals to develop a process that would give clients the information, skills, and support they need to have the best divorce they can. We encourage our clients to focus on what matters most to them, both now and into the future. By using our contacts, we assist clients in finding good professionals who will both understand the strong emotions that divorce can provoke, and can help couples identify and achieve their goals.
History of the Collaborative Divorce Model
For 30 years, Dr. Nurse and I worked as therapists to help clients improve their family relationships. For some clients, these attempts at improvement were not enough to preserve their marriages. In these cases, we tried to assist our clients through divorce and the restructuring of their families in the least painful waypossible. Too often the traditional system of divorce unnecessarily damaged already fragile relationships. Fifteen years ago, Dr. Nurse and I brought together a team that developed the Collaborative Divorce model. Linking this model with Collaborative Law, we created a system that gives clients a supportive team approach to addressing the problems that arise during divorce. Within the Collaborative Divorce system, each client is provided with his or her own certified divorce coach and legal advisor, and the couple shares a financial specialist. A child specialist voices the needs of the family’s children. Collaborative Divorce draws together a range of professionals so that all the legal, financial, and emotional aspects of divorce may be properly addressed.
Who Are Our Clients
We work with couples who are considering or have chosen to end their marriages or partnerships. We work with people who’ve had short marriages and long ones, marriages where there are minimal assets and marriages with substantial assets, and both straight and gay couples
A Glimpse At Personal Collaborative Divorce Coaching
Personal Collaborative Divorce Coaches enable their clients to:
Identify and express what they want
Understand the different ways to achieve a divorce
Engage their partner in a collaborative divorce
Consider what divorce will mean for them and their children
Contact the professionals (legal, financial, etc.) they need
Communicate clearly about issues that matter most to them
Decide what to do first
Manage their emotions and express them clearly
Draw on their strengths
Work with their partner to develop a plan for shared parenting
Achieve their goals in the divorce process
Consider and achieve their goals for the future
Collaborative Divorce Child Specialist
Even though we often think of divorce as a couple’s event, it is really a family event. When there are children involved, no matter what their age, divorce has a profound affect on them.
While I often act as a Divorce Coach, I also team with other coaches to serve as a Child Specialist. I love to meet with children as I always have a good time getting to know them. I work with a broad range of children aged seven to nineteen, and also young adults.
As a Child Specialist, I talk to children about what is happening within their families and how they think it will change their lives. We discuss what they think is most important. Many children have friends who experienced extremely difficult and painful divorces. It’s common for children to assume that that is going to happen in their own families. Children often ask questions of Child Specialists that they are unwilling or unable to ask their parents. Parents have said that after meeting with me to discuss their family's impending divorce, their children are much less anxious.
Many people think that because their children are over eighteen, divorce will not affect them as much as it would if they were younger. Often it is extremely difficult for young adults to deal both with leaving home and with the feeling that they now cannot return because their family has separated. This loss of home and family is not always the reality, but it is often the perception. There is sometimes also a great deal of anger toward one of the parents. This may cause both depression and anxiety. Young adults find it helpful to talk with a neutral party (a Child Specialist) about their family's divorce. It is also helpful for them to participate in a concluding group session with their parents and the Divorce Coaches.
After The Divorce
Divorce is a continuum. Clients who have children will continue in a permanent relationship as co-parents despite the divorce. Particularly when children are young, there are many decisions to be made in consideration of their well-being. Their parents must be able to communicate about these important decisions. In the Collaborative Divorce approach, we help clients lay a good foundation for their relationship as co-parents. During the first two to five years after a divorce, there will most likely be many events in each adult client’s life that will repeatedly require emotional adjustment for them and their children. The Collaborative Divorce team is available to assist all members of the family through these difficult transitions. Some clients choose to continue coaching for a few sessions after the legal action is complete. In our experience, it is easiest for clients to schedule follow-up sessions at six months, twelve months, eighteen months and two years following the divorce. This gives clients the opportunity to air any minor or moderate issues before they escalate into huge problems.
Transitions Where We Can Help
The Collaborative Divorce team can help when clients:
Enter a new significant relationship
Experience changes in employment and income
Must adapt to the changing needs of their children
Experience illness or the illness of their children