Collectivising the Land: Putting Help into Your Hands

Today is Parental Alienation Awareness Day, a day when we speak out about the problem of loss of a child after family separation and the pain that it brings to families across the world. Alienation from a child is a bleak and lonely experience and it is one which is too often shrouded in shame and mystery. On this day, when mothers and fathers across the world are releasing balloons and bubbles of love for their children, I am so happy to launch our new way of supporting families who are suffering, our self help site which is called Parental Alienation Direct. This is our bubble of love for all families suffering from this problem, it is our safe space where parents can get help as well as give it. It is a place where information will be gathered and made available and where you can meet and talk with other parents as well as experts who work with the problem. Parental Alienation Direct is a new way of getting support into your hands.

We are running this site ourselves with the help of people with skills they are giving for free. It is a collective endeavour, it is about putting help into your hands. Parental Alienation Direct will be up and running fully in June and our forums, where you can ask questions, access seminars and webinars and give help as well as get it, will be running from July. The site has been brought together over the past two years through the commitment and interest that Nick and I share in collective working, it has taken us time to get to this point because we have had to do it all whilst we work at the Family Separation Clinic.  In the summer you will have both Parental Alienation Direct and our new book to go with it, you will have as much of our knowledge and understanding as we have been able to gather in one place, in your hands, making your journey (we hope), easier, cheaper and much less lonely. Advice from legal people and skilled mental health professionals from around the  world will be available and we will feature articles from other experts in the field to help you to fit together the most comprehensive understanding possible to empower and support you.

It has taken a lot of time for us to get to this launch and we are not quite there yet.  Our book and the site have been written and built in our spare time (not that we have much of it), in between our work in the family courts in the UK and our training delivery.  Those of you who know our work at the Family Separation Clinic, will know that in order to fulfil those committments we travel widely. Next month we will be training for the Judicial Studies Institute in Scotland as well a presenting at a major seminar in London. Additionally we are discussing with European colleagues, the set up of a European Network of Parental Alienation Practitioners, we hope our book and the new site will give voice and focus to that endeavour.

We are close enough to the new site being ready,  for me to be able to tell you that Parental Alienation Direct will host forums for families, a knowledge bank, useful links to other sites and will feature guest writers and experts on a weekly basis as well as my usual blog. It will also showcase new work with families across the world as well as stories of hope and healing from parents themselves. One of our key features will be recommended experts and how to choose who to help you on your journey.

We aim to make the site as helpful and accessible as we can and welcome proposals for articles and recommendations as well as stories about successful outcomes which will help others to achieve the same. The forums will be open to all for a small annual cost of £60 per year or £7 per month. Other elements of the site such as webinars and guidance videos will be also be charged for but the cost will be as low as we can possibly make it. All of the other knowledge bank will be free to access. The site will feature excerpts from our new book which is now with the publisher and you will be able to purchase the book from Amazon through it. We will feature different aspects of the book on the forums regularly for discussion and learning. We want to make you as alienation aware as we can and skilled in all of the areas of relational health so that you are truly your child’s best hope for a healthy life, we know how much that is needed by alienated children everywhere.

As we collectivise the land of post separated family life and put the help and the power into your hands, I want to say to all alienated parents everywhere, do not be beaten, do not stop loving your children and never ever give up hope. Working together, sharing skills, stories and strategies, the loneliness ends and the hope for a better future is restored. I want to welcome you all to our new way of being in the world where we can all share the burden and bring healing and love and positive change across the world. Parental Alienation Direct is coming soon, every family affected by parental alienation everywhere in the world, is welcome to join us. We look forward to seeing you there soon.

Parental Alienation Direct – is available in June 2016 and will be linked from this blog. We welcome proposals for articles, ideas for topics on the forum and thoughts on what we could offer from the site.  Please send via this blog.

This blog will continue and will be featured on the new site.

Understanding Parental Alienation: Learning to Cope, Helping to Heal is now with the publisher and ready for publication in summer 2016. This is a huge compendium of our knowledge in working with parents and children affected by alienation.  If you have pre-ordered a copy it will come direct to you in the post. If you would like to order a copy now you can do so here