Page 14: Because life goes on … helping children and youth live with separation and divorce

Online Resources

Resources for Parents and Helping Professionals

Families Change – A Parent Guide to Separation and Divorce
This online guide provides information on dealing with change, feelings and emotions; how to tell the children; and child support.

Families Change - Parenting After Separation (Online Course)
This comprehensive course covers the same topics as the in-person workshops available in British Columbia. The information offered in this course will be of interest to all parents in Canada. This online course is available in English, Punjabi and Mandarin.

Families Change - Parenting After Separation: Finances (Online Course)
This comprehensive and very practical online course includes a downloadable handbook for parents on managing finances after separation.

Finding Quality Child Care – A Guide for Parents in Canada
This comprehensive and practical site provides information for parents in Canada looking for quality child care in their community that is affordable and meets the needs of their families.

Justice Canada – Making Plans: A Guide to Parenting Arrangements after Separation or Divorce
This guide provides useful information about parenting after separation and divorce.

Justice Canada – Parenting Plan Tool
This tool gives parents with options to develop a basic parenting plan.

Justice Canada – Parenting Plan Checklist
This checklist helps parents identify issues to consider when developing a parenting plan.

Justice Canada – The Federal Child Support Guidelines: Step-by-Step
This guide has general information, instructions and worksheets, as well as other tools, to help parents make decisions about child support when they separate or divorce.

Justice Canada - Family Justice Services
This web page provides a lists family justice services offered by your provincial or territorial government.

Justice Canada – Public Legal Education and Information Organizations (PLEIs)
PLEIs offer free legal information for the general public, including family law information specific to your province and territory.

Justice Canada – Family Violence
This web page provides information about family violence, the laws relating to family violence and the kind of help that is available to someone experiencing family violence.

Manitoba: For the Sake of the Children
For the Sake of the Children provides information to help parents understand their separation and divorce and what they can do to help themselves and their children cope and adjust.

Alberta: Parenting After Separation
Parenting After Separation is a six hour seminar offering information to parents about the separation and divorce process, the effects of separation and divorce on children, techniques for communication and legal information that affects parents and children. The manual linked to the seminar is very well done and is available to download.

Canadian Paediatric Society – Caring for Kids
This site for parents provides information developed by paediatricians on how to help children cope with separation and divorce and many other topics from growing and learning, behaviour and parenting, to teen health.

Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA) – Separation and Divorce
CMHA’s web site provides information on separation and divorce as well as downloadable brochures on various mental health issues, including on children, youth and depression; feeling angry; getting help; grieving and stress.

Centre of Excellence for Early Childhood Development – Divorce and Separation
The Centre’s web site includes a comprehensive online encyclopedia of topics such as separation and divorce, attachment, resilience and parenting skills related to parental separation.

Divorce Help for Parents
This site offers helpful articles and tips on a number of post-separation parenting topics.

The Association of Family and Conciliation Courts
The premier interdisciplinary and international association of professionals dedicated to the resolution of family conflict. AFCC members are the leading practitioners, researchers, teachers and policymakers in the family court arena.

Resources for Children and Youth

Families Change – A Kids’ Guide to Separation and Divorce
This guide is designed to help children aged 5 to 12 to understand what is happening to their family.

Families Change - Changeville
This resource is an interactive game for children and youth that guides young people through the changes and feelings they might experience during their parents’ separation.

Justice Canada – What Happens Next? Information for Kids about Separation and Divorce
Designed for the between the ages of nine and twelve, this resource helps children understand some basic facts about family law and gives them some idea of the emotions and processes their parents may be going through.

Justice Canada – The “What Happens Next?” Calendar for Kids to Keep Track of Important Dates When Your Parents Split Up
This calendar is designed to help children keep track of the times they will spend with each parent, as well as other important dates throughout the year, if their parents separate or divorce (already state above, this is for children of separating parents).

Sesame Street – Little Children, Big Challenges: Divorce
This website offers excellent and creative resources for families with young children (ages2-8) as they encounter the tough transitions that come with their parents’ divorce.

Families Change - A Teen Guide to Parental Separation & Divorce
This guide is designed to help preteens and teens to deal with the changes happening in their family.

Other Related Resources

United Nations Human Rights - Convention on the Rights of the Child
The Convention on the Rights of the Child is an internationally recognized agreement between nations which establishes a comprehensive set of goals for individual nations to achieve on behalf of their children (article 3, 5, 12, 14, and 18 are most relevant to separation and divorce).

Landon Pearson Resource Center for the Study of Childhood and Children’s Rights – A Canada Fit for Children: Identity, Rights and Belonging
The purpose of the document is to look at the situation of children and youth in Canada through their own lens, including issues such as identity, rights and belonging, and steps for positive change.

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