By Helen Jane Arnold

I have been an active member of Resolution – formerly the Solicitors Family Law Association – for more than 20 years and during this past year the organisation has been celebrating its 25th anniversary by turning the spotlight on to children. It has launched an initiative called Parenting after Parting to provide advice and support for separating and divorcing couples. Through a comprehensive handbook, which is available online at www.resolution.org.uk/parentingafterparting/, and workshops around the country, the aim is to put children and their needs at the very heart of family break-ups.

I am painfully aware that youngsters caught up in divorce can often be invisible to their parents and their lawyers. Too often, the collapse of a relationship focuses on money, property and a couple’s gripes with one another. Despite heightened understanding of the effects of divorce and separation on children, their needs are still not sufficiently heeded and addressed.

Children’s lives are turned upside down when their parents separate. What struck me as I listened to the speakers at the Resolution conference last month was that, for children, their parents’ separation becomes part of them.

I was reminded of people I have known whose lives have been affected by their parents’ break-up – in some cases to the point it coloured their own personal relationships from that time on – some of whom have been affected to such a degree that they have been unable to recover properly from the experience.

We lawyers, as professional advisors, spend our time dispensing advice to our clients in such a way that it is all too easy to become focused on the adult perspective of the relationship breakdown.

I, therefore, welcome the Parenting after Parting initiative because it serves to refocus the way in which I – and my family law colleagues – can manage the divorce process. It supports parents to help their children to cope with the separation process and absorb it as part of life’s fabric without it inflicting lasting damage.

Damage can be caused to children very quickly. If parents are taken up with their own problems in the initial stages of separation, by the time they turn their attention to the children, it can be too late.

However painful it is for adults, it’s imperative they rise above their own distress, from the start, to care for their children’s emotional welfare.

As well as the handbook – which I’ll précis in the next blog – Resolution is also organising a series of Parenting after Parting workshops (the first one is on March 28, 2009) to offer guidance to parents who are worried or unsure about telling their children about the divorce, how it will affect their children’s future and want to know more about how to help children cope with the upheaval.

The workshops are currently being piloted in six areas – Cambridge, Kent, London, Milton Keynes, Newcastle and West Midlands – and if you are interested in attending, please contact Resolution.

It strikes me that just as many mums-to-be enrol on NCT pre-natal courses to ensure the wellbeing of their offspring, so divorcing parents should consider signing up to Parenting after Parting workshops for the same reason.