You can provide the therapeutic counsel and guidance couples desperately need to navigate through the rocky shoals of divorce. Your reward will be their heartfelt gratitude, tremendous personal and professional satisfaction, and, potentially, a new source of income.
THE NEED FOR YOUR SERVICES IS GREAT.
Well over a thousand of your neighbors in the area where you practice will make the decision to end their marital relationships this year. In this state, over 160,000 couples petition for divorce every year. Divorces increase after the holidays.
Each couple can have a good divorce or a bad divorce. Their fate is dependent on the counsel and support they receive during the divorce process.
Much of what divorce attorneys do they do poorly. They are not trained to deal with emotions and relationship issues.
As a Mental Health Professional (“MHP”), you are. With Parting Properly training and support, your skill will enable you to provide counsel to couples as they go through their divorces.
Most divorces are preceded by either or both members of a couple seeking help from a MHP. If they decide to divorce, they are most often woefully unprepared. They are vulnerable to misinformation that directs them down destructive paths.
Many therapists consider their role terminated when a couple announces a decision to divorce. In the past, many have wished their clients well and advised them to consult lawyers. Such therapists are exiting at arguably the most sensitive and crucial turning point – when the couple must start making numerous decisions that will have enormous repercussions on their mental health, the well-being of their children, their finances, and their living situation for many years to come.
THAT IS WHERE YOU CAN COME IN. Parting Properly will arm you with the information and support you need to use your therapeutic skill and experience to provide maximum assistance to divorcing couples and their children.
The Fifty Billion Dollar divorce industry in the United States has driven the public perception of divorce more by myths than by facts.
The chances of a good divorce can be dramatically improved if the divorcing individuals can be educated early, given support to deal with their emotions, and taught how best to control their own behavior. You are ideally suited to do that. Attorneys are not.
You already provide therapeutic assistance when couples are contemplating divorce and after the divorce is finalized. You can now use your skills to guide couples through a constructive rather than a destructive experience during the divorce.
Divorcing couples are ill-equipped to deal with the emotional toll divorce can take. Feelings of fear, uncertainty, rejection, anger, and humiliation provoke behavior that makes matters worse. DIVORCING COUPLES NEED YOU.
Unfortunately, many MHPs are deterred from becoming divorce mentors by unfounded fears and concerns, not one of which has merit. Some of the most common concerns are addressed below.
YOU NEED NOT BE CONCERNED ABOUT WHETHER YOU CAN MEET THE NEED.
You may be apprehensive about the following issues:
- Is becoming a divorce mentor beyond my therapeutic scope?
The answer is a resounding NO!
Divorce mentoring is explicitly welcomed and permitted by law as a valuable service. It is about applying common sense to the process of ending a marital relationship. Divorcing couples need exactly the kind of skill that you possess.
Everybody has been taught about how to create relationships. From the book How to Make Friends and Influence People in the 30’s to algorithm-based dating sites today, from kindergarten to old age, we have all received instruction about how to bond.
BUT almost nobody has been taught about how to end relationships. When the “D” word comes up, most people are totally uninformed. They need a mentor to direct them. But, for years they have had to rely on attorneys instead.
Attorneys are not trained to alleviate the fears, the uncertainty, the depression, the damage to self-esteem, the sense of helplessness, and the hundreds of other emotions that lead to bad decisions. Attorneys are not mentors.
You may say, “But, what about the legal aspects of divorce?” Ah, that is the great myth. Contrary to what the legal profession would have the public believe, if a couple does not litigate there are virtually no legal aspects of divorce.
There are only two legal requirements a couple must meet if they don’t litigate. Only two. PERIOD!
(1) Each of the parties must make a full, complete, and honest disclosure of all financial matters (assets, liabilities, income, and expense) to the other; and
(2) Any agreement dealing with children must be for the children’s welfare and best interest.
THAT’S IT!
The couple that decides not to litigate can do whatever they decide to do, regardless of the arbitrary, one-size fits all, legislative rules that guide attorneys.
The myth has been exposed. Couples can ignore the archaic legislative rules, some of which date from the Civil War, and, with a mentor’s guidance, they can reach agreements based upon fairness and right.
It is apparent that when a divorce attorney is retained for legal advice, the unstated assumption is that litigation is inevitable. Otherwise, why engage an attorney.
Parties fighting over whether an asset is community or separate property are guaranteed acrimony and conflict which will lead to a very expensive, never ending “bad” divorce.
On the other hand, when a Parting Properly divorce mentor is retained, the presumption is that the parties will not litigate and will be free to decide all matters on the basis of fairness, with an eye to the future. Whether you define property as community or separate is irrelevant if the effort is to achieve fairness.
You can provide mentoring successfully as soon as you have received the Parting Properly training. Parting Properly has scraped away the legal mystique that surrounds the world of divorce.
Parting Properly clients you will mentor have already agreed not to litigate. They have agreed to go through the divorce process with civility, honesty, and fairness, with an eye to reaching a mutually beneficial result, prioritizing the welfare of their children.
Even high conflict couples make that agreement. They are convinced by Parting Properly that the alternative is the doomsday divorce court, with its fearful adversarial process and its devastating outcome.
Parting Properly takes care of all the logistics, including the engagement letter signed by the couple, the billing for your services, the payment of your fees, preparing and filing the court documents required to initiate and finalize the divorce, drafting agreements the clients make, and all other logistical matters.
Parting Properly provides any and all support you need when you encounter a problem with which you require assistance.
In short, Parting Properly trains you and supports you to provide the counsel individuals need to get through the process with success.
The skills required you already have. You just need Parting Properly training, direction, and support to apply them to meet the need.
- What is the role of a MHP in guiding couples to get through divorce?
Classically, the role of a MHP is to create a forum in which the client can make his or her own decisions. That is also the role of a MHP who acts as a divorce mentor.
The role of a MHP acting as a divorce mentor includes providing guidance to each spouse about how to make specific decisions acceptable to the other spouse. That is accomplished by focusing on fairness and the future.
Divorce mentoring is about helping couples make practical decisions about specific issues that relate to the process of restructuring the family.
For some therapists that kind of problem solving may seem somewhat beyond the traditional mission of MHPs as healers. However, it coincides exactly with their mission to facilitate clients’ own decision making, and the prevention of emotional harm is squarely within the role of a healer.
Clients cannot make decisions when they are burdened by misconceptions and myths. A MHP, acting as a divorce mentor, assists them to recognize that they can create agreements based upon fairness and mutual benefit rather than trying to shoe horn their agreements into some arbitrary one-size fits all definition that does not apply when the criteria is fairness.
The Parting Properly step by step process is simple. You don’t have to wrestle with how a property should be defined. You only have to help couples decide how to allocate the property honestly and fairly. Clients love that approach.
- How can I integrate the time and effort of providing divorce mentoring to clients that desperately need it into my current vocational schedule and my limited time?
It is not as hard as you might think.
Prospective clients may come to you directly once you make it known that you are a qualified Parting Properly divorce counselor and can mentor them through the divorce process, or they may come to you from a Parting Properly referral.
In either case, an initial face to face meeting of approximately one hour is required. The meeting can be held in your office or in an office provided by Parting Properly near your location.
After the initial meeting, which a Parting Properly representative will attend with you, the clients will interact directly with you.
Virtually all of the interactions will be by telephone, text, or email, which will significantly reduce conflicts with your schedule, since many of the interactions will be fifteen minutes or less and can be scheduled at your convenience.
Your interactions will concern helping the clients to see matters from their spouse’s perspective as well as their own, and helping them reach common sense agreements.
The clients will transmit financial information to you, which you will transmit to Parting Properly. Parting Properly will provide the financial analysis, which you will communicate to the clients.
You will help each of them express their concerns and desires and provide a third- party viewpoint of how best to deal with each of the issues fairly. You will do that by using your therapeutic skills to assist each of them emotionally and by empowering them to jointly make decisions.
When the clients reach settlement and co-parenting agreements, you will transmit to Parting Properly a synopsis of each agreement so that Parting Properly can put the agreements in proper form for execution. Parting Properly will take care of all logistics.
Your job will be to take a couple desperate for someone to hold their hands as they go through the process of separating their households and planning for the future of themselves and their children. There will be challenges, but your involvement in their lives will rescue them from the acrimonious, dysfunctional process based upon giving up their control and letting attorneys and judges make decisions for them.
You will confirm to them that they are more qualified to make decisions about their lives and the allocation of their assets than any attorney or judge, and that they have greater love and concern for their children than any child custody evaluator. You will save them from a future contaminated by unforgiveness and ingratitude, and guide them to a future filled with hope and emotional well-being.
- Can divorce mentoring be financially rewarding enough to make it worthwhile?
The Parting Properly step by step method of getting couples through divorce takes about twenty four hours of mentoring over the six month waiting period from the time the divorce is initiated until it can be finalized, or about four hours per month per couple.
You can mentor five couples by committing about twenty hours per month, increasing your income while structuring your interaction with them at your convenience, filling in your time available that is not now being used, and, at $200.00 per hour, potentially adding Four Thousand Dollars to your income each month.
In some instances, the hourly rate you will receive can be greater than $200.00 per hour.
You will have to decide if the potential financial rewards are sufficient. But, as you are making that decision, do not forget, in addition to potentially adding significant income, you will be providing a service that will change lives and save children from the ravages of divorce.
- Are the couples involved in divorce so difficult that assisting them will add stress to my life?
It is just the opposite. Most couples do not want to fight. It is often the subculture of attorneys and their training in adversarial advocacy that promotes conflict and animosity at the expense of cooperative behavior.
Couples come to Parting Properly because of what we offer: a non-litigious, non- adversarial, non-contentious, less bitter, less expensive, quicker, more fair, more empowering way to end their relationships on a common sense, mutually beneficial basis. Even high conflict couples engage us because they can be made to understand the futility and the incredible expense in time, money, and energy of fighting.
The mindset of couples that engage Parting Properly is never, “help us fight.” It is always, “show us how we can avoid fighting.”
We always show them how to avoid fighting and give them the tools to get through the divorce as quickly and inexpensively as possible, which is exactly what they want us to do.
AS YOU CAN IMAGINE, EVERY PARTING PROPERLY CLIENT IS GRATEFUL THEY ENGAGED A PARTING PROPERLY DIVORCE MENTOR TO BRING THEM THROUGH THE DIVORCE PROCESS.
Rather than feeling stress from dealing with divorcing couples, Parting Properly divorce mentors are granted a tangible sense of satisfaction and a wonderful feeling of achievement for rendering a valuable service that has benefitted the lives of not just two individuals and their children, but their extended family and friends.
Divorce mentors enjoy an exceptional feeling of success from acting as the catalysts that enable clients to do things they could never otherwise do. Divorce mentors receive a marvelous additive of positive energy in their lives every day.
Divorce mentoring is, indeed, a form of unselfish service. As such, those who provide it enjoy the rewards of using their skill on behalf of those who are in desperate need and who, invariably, are appropriately grateful.
CLASSES ARE INTERESTING, ENTERTAINING, AND INFORMATIVE.
A MHP divorce mentor does not need to have a trained legal mind in order to counsel couples to make fully informed, fair, and honest decisions in the process of protecting and allocating assets and dividing liabilities, determining needs and available resources, and caring for children.
However, it is useful for a MHP divorce mentor to have a working knowledge of the divorce process in order to provide accurate information and, more importantly, to recognize and dispel common myths about divorce.
Parting Properly training provides an overview of divorce procedure and introduces MHPs to the legal culture which interprets laws that, while only applicable if a couple litigates, never-the-less have become embedded in public consciousness.
MHPs who take the training find it fascinating to learn how arcane legislative decisions, some based upon outdated attitudes from the time of the Civil War over 150 years ago, are still applied by attorneys to shape the way their clients approach the process of ending their marriages.
Such information helps MHPs guide clients to avoid the emphasis placed by the legal process on fault finding. The legal process is ready-made to encourage a spouse, who may actually be willing to forgive and move on, to focus on blaming the behavior of the other to the point that he or she wants revenge or vindication. Attorneys sometimes encourage their client’s fantasy that a judge will side with them.
MHPs, who understand the psychological dynamics of divorce, are sorely needed to accompany couples through the process, if only to help them focus on the future, rather than the past. MHPs can lead couples to achieve a “good” divorce. Parting Properly training prepares them to do so.
Divorce involves changes, all of which come at an emotional price. The Parting Properly Training regarding the anticipated changes and how best to prepare clients to deal with them emotionally will expand your perspective. The training is exciting as you begin to understand and celebrate the vision of Parting Properly for the future of divorce.
Parting Properly training delineates the critical role of the MHP in guiding clients through the early stages and tasks so that they can achieve a “good” divorce. It also shows why continuity of MHP mentoring during the process is necessary.
MHPs can continually help clients identify what they are feeling at each stage and help clients to predict the consequences of acting on those feelings.
A trained MHP can help each spouse find reasonable interpretations of the behavior of the other spouse to minimize attribution of malice when the other spouse’s behavior is troubling.
A trained MHP, who is familiar with divorce as taught by Parting Properly, can help normalize feelings and behavior and assist each client to keep his or her eye on long-term interests.
A trained MHP can help clients explore the emotional consequences of strategies and tactics so that the clients are not led blindly into destructive behavior. Often a client’s refrain is, “My life feels totally out of control.” A Parting Properly trained MHP can help restore a sense of control and give both clients the perspective needed to move forward confidently.
You can see why Parting Properly has rejected the dysfunction of legal proceedings and replaced it with divorce mentoring. While it may sound like an oxymoron, a properly trained MHP can achieve a “good” divorce for both clients.
Believe it or not, it is fun to learn in Parting Properly classes how to set clients on a firm foundation for future success, and how to help them achieve the following:
- Emotional divorce (“letting go”) as well as legal divorce.
- Retention of the ability to co-parent successfully.
- Emotional acceptance of the fairness of agreements they have reached.
- Children comfortable in both households.
- The ability to resolve disputes themselves as circumstances change.
- The ability to rebuild their lives.
After the training, with Parting Properly support, it is even more satisfying to participate directly in the lives of families as they go through the process of reordering their relationships for their own benefit as well as for the benefit of their children.
The Parting Properly Promise:
After you have mentored a family successfully through the divorce process, you will get a lump in your throat and a feeling of gratitude in your heart as you consider how your efforts have impacted the lives of clients with whom you have established a mentor/pupil bond.
As a divorce mentor you will have saved them from falling into the black hole of the doomsday legal divorce process, and you will have seen them emerge from a traumatic and difficult situation empowered and confident as they move forward with their lives.
OBTAINING THE TRAINING AND GETTING STARTED IS EASY.
Parting Properly has made the training as simple and easy as possible.
- A comprehensive manual is provided. The Table of Contents is set forth at the end of this material. Remember, as you review it, that Parting Properly does all the actual logistical work. The purpose of inclusion of the logistical matters in the training manual and classes is to inform you about the process. You do not need to worry about being required to perform any logistical work yourself.
- Four interactive video conference classes, of approximately two hours each, are provided to trainees. You can ask questions and receive answers in real time and interact directly with your instructor. The classes are scheduled at convenient times.
- Parting Properly instructors are always available during the learning process for telephone, text, or email chats.
- The classes and Manual cost $925.00.
- Once the classes have been completed, Parting Properly provides full support as you undertake the process of divorce mentoring.
- Parting Properly will continue to market to attract clients and will designate you as a Parting Properly Divorce Mentor in the geographic area in which you wish to perform services. (Just a Note: Because mentoring is primarily based upon electronic communication you can service clients in a large area, if you wish to do so.)
- Call with any questions about training and getting started: (831) 207-6782 [Doug’s Cell Phone]
THE PARTING PROPERLY PHILOSOPHY.
Divorce has been characterized as the most traumatic experience an individual or child can endure, second only to the death of a loved one. Bitter divorces tend to go on forever, draining a family’s resources, and inhibiting the ability of couples and children to get on with their lives.
The more contact couples have with the legal system, the worse off they are. The dysfunctional system, set up to compartmentalize legal and emotional issues, will never change on its own. The divorce industry profits from the pain and suffering of families to the tune of Fifty Billion Dollars a year.
Nearly one-hundred percent of divorcing couples do not want to fight. That is true even when they have been fighting for years. Most people are not stupid. They understand the cost of fighting in a divorce. They just want to get the divorce over as soon and inexpensively as possible.
Most couples come to Parting Properly tired. They look to Parting Properly to relieve them from the conflict, minor or intense, that they have endured as their relationship deteriorated. The few who do want to fight engage attorneys. They do not engage Parting Properly.
Unless potential clients are willing to sign an engagement letter that both have renounced litigation as a means of resolving disputes, they do not become clients. People who refuse to sign the engagement letter are politely informed that Parting Properly cannot help them. People who do sign the engagement letter understand that Parting Properly is devoted to mentoring them to achieve a civil, cooperative divorce with integrity rather than acrimony, and they welcome the approach.
The mantra of Parting Properly is “Never give a third party permission to make decisions for your life that are better made yourself.” We teach clients to honor that admonition.
Attorneys are trained to operate in an adversarial professional culture. The training may result in fanning flames of hostility and clashing with the needs of families.
Because divorce requires changes in living arrangements it requires decisions about housing, moving, employment, child rearing, and careers, among others, that have a significant emotional component. Therapists, not attorneys, are better suited to guide practical decision making so that clients can decide wisely.
In the reorganization of the family as a result of divorce, therapists can make a profound difference in the outcome. MHPs are the most suited of any professional group to mentor divorcing couples. NOW, FINALLY, with Parting Properly training and support, they are able to do so.
IT IS AN EXCITING TIME, AS TOGETHER WE CHANGE THE PARADIGM OF DIVORCE.
Parting Properly Training Manual
Table of Contents
Trainee Commitment and Agreement
Introduction
- Divorce Is Not Rocket Science
- Timeline and Logistics of Divorce in California
- The Old, Dysfunctional Method of Obtaining a Divorce
- The New, Enlightened Parting Properly Protocol for Obtaining a Divorce
- Dealing with Couples Who Do Not Want to Fight
- Dealing with High Conflict Couples
- Convincing Couples that Parting Properly is the Ideal Divorce Solution
- Helping Couples Agree Not to Litigate
- Helping Couples Agree to Honestly and Completely Disclose
- Helping Couples Agree to Negotiate and Cooperate in Good Faith
- Helping Couples Agree that a Decision to Renege will Terminate the Involvement of Parting Properly
- Qualifications of a Prospective Parting Properly Mentor
- Forms of Parting Properly Documents:
- Appendix One: Mentor Application Form
- Appendix Two: Agreement Between Parting Properly and Mentor
- Appendix Three: Agreement Between Parting Properly and Trained Mentor and Clients
- Responding to Client Referrals
- Initial Contact with Clients
- Initial Meeting with Clients, which a Parting Properly Mentor will also attend
- Information to be Obtained from Clients
- Appendix Four: Personal Information Form (Clients)
- Appendix Five: Form for Disclosing Assets, Liabilities, Income, and Expenses
- Appendix Six: Form for Describing Family, Children, and Living Situation
- Appendix Seven: New Perspective Exercise Template
- Guiding Clients
- Building a Correct Relationship with Clients
- Scheduling and Setting Deadlines
- How the Dissolution of Marriage Proceedings are Initiated
- Mentoring Clients and Mediating Their Issues the Parting Properly Way
- Collecting and Organizing Information and Transmitting it to Parting Properly
- Teaching Correct Principles
- Accomplishing a Mutually Beneficial Divorce
- Agreements between Clients
- Appendix Eight: Settlement Agreement Template
- Appendix Nine: Co-Parenting Agreement Template
- Logistics
- Fees
- Collection of Fees from Clients and Payment of the Mentor’s Hourly Rate
- Mentor Reporting Requirements
- Books to be Read
- Frequently Asked Questions
- Completion of Training, Assignment of Geographic Area, and Time Commitment
- Ongoing Parting Properly Training and Support for Mentors
- Appendix Ten: Parting Properly eBooks:
https://www.partingproperly.com/free-ebook/
https://lp.constantcontact.com/su/i5bSE1F/mentorebook
https://partingproperlymentors.com/free-ebook/
24. Blogs
- Appendix Eleven: It’s about the kids. It must be changed. Parting Properly Changes Divorce.
- Appendix Twelve: Follow the Advice of Divorce Court Judges!!!
- Appendix Thirteen: Selecting a Divorce Professional is all about Trust.
- Appendix Fourteen: Every Divorcing Couple needs a Parting Properly Divorce Mentor.
- Appendix Fifteen: Why Use Parting Properly for Divorce Instead of Plain Old Mediation?
- Marketing and Advertising
- Parting Properly
- Emails
- Telephone Contacts
- Websites
- Blogs
- Phased In Social Media
- LinkedIn Contacts
- Marketing to Potential Clients
- Mentor
- Emails
- Telephone Contacts
- Banners, Website Information, and Linking Websites
- Blogs
- Phased In Social Media
- LinkedIn Profile, Marketing and Messaging to LinkedIn Connections, and Publishing Posts and Articles
- Marketing to Potential Clients
- Designating the Mentor’s Office Address on the Parting Properly Website
- Parting Properly
26. Support Provided to Mentors by Parting Properly:
-
- Continued Guidance and Hands-On Involvement
- Administration and Management of Office, Billing, Payments, and Etc.
- Paralegals or Others for Preparation of Documents and Filing
- Certified Public Accountants (If Necessary)
- Certified Divorce Financial Analysts (If Necessary)
- Facilitating Client Agreements
- Turning Agreements into Documents
- Attorneys for Document Review
27. Appendix Sixteen: Parenting Plan