I wanted to take some time to share with you my policies on working with divorced/separated families to help your child grow and progress towards goals in the best way possible, as well as make therapy a positive experience. This can greatly help you as a parent understand what to expect as a co-parent from the therapy process. 

The following guidelines apply to your child’s therapy:

• I welcome both parents to have open communication with me, because as parents you are the most important people in your child’s life.  Both parents are welcome to bring their child to appointments, see me for an individual parent appointment, or contact me via phone 218.730.7862 or e-mail at [email protected].  ​
• I only allow parents to schedule and cancel appointments that they will be bringing their child to.  No parent is allowed to make or cancel the other parent’s appointment.
• My role as a therapist is to help your child progress towards their mental health goals.  In my work parents often bring up concerns about what may be happening in the other parents home or during their child’s time with their former partner.  The intent is typically to attempt to change their former partner’s behavior via the therapy process.  If this should happen I will encourage you to find a way to bring it up with your co-parent but will not address it myself in or out of session, as my role is not a mediator.  The only exception is if your child brings up something they wish to discuss with a parent, then we can move forward in doing so OR if what the parent is saying is considered something I need to disclose to a third party due to my role as a mandated reporter.
• A large part of my role as your child’s therapist is to help with parenting techniques that can improve the mental health and relational health of your child.  Recommendations may be different for each individual parent, however if there are recommendations that should be followed through in both homes I will communicate this to both parents.
• Due to the need to keep the therapy space a neutral safe space, if you do need to discuss something that is an “adult issue” regarding court, visitation, parenting time, etc. I will ask your child to leave so we can discuss this in private.   
• I never recommend using therapy content communicated in or out of session in any legal proceedings, this could significantly negatively impact your child’s safe therapy space and mental health.  Therapy is meant to work on your child’s mental health symptoms, not to gather information that is useful for determining custody, parenting time, or other legal decisions about your child.  Should you desire these services I would recommend you hire a custody evaluator or parenting consultant.  If children know what they say in therapy could end up in court used as information to make decisions about them, they will not see therapy as a safe space and will not feel comfortable enough to open up and engage in the therapy process.

Resources:

​If you are looking for someone to assess custody or parenting time or help making decisions between you and your co-parent about your child, that is outside the scope of individual mental health therapy and is an ethical conflict of interest for an individual therapist to assess and provide support for both individual therapy and custody evaluation.  I would recommend seeking out a specific Custody Evaluator that can assess you, your ex-partner, and your child/children and make recommendations about parenting time and custody. If you are looking for support on decision making for your child between you and your ex-partner I would recommend the support of a Mediator or a Parenting Consultant.