Divorcing the sane way: A guide
This is me – Kate, and I work as a qualified Counsellor. I help couples navigate the emotionally messy business of relationship breakdown and divorce. I’m also a Coach and Management Consultant and an expert in the psychology of behaviour change – but that’s another story. I’m divorced myself, so now I’m a single mother and, a “survivor” of protracted and expensive divorce litigation. I realised going through my own divorce that there had to be a better way to separate than the experience I had had and so decided to use my professional training to help couples separate with respect, and often most importantly…with the option for an on-going functioning relationship – especially important when children are involved. A while ago I met Lisa…
This is Lisa – Lisa is a Solicitor, Family and Collaborative Lawyer and Mediator. She is founding member of Thameside Collaborative Lawyers and the Thameside Collaborative Community, bringing together Family Consultants (that’s me), Financials (that’s Financial Advisers, Pension experts etc.) and Lawyers. Lisa is an expert in divorce but she also has a Certificate in the Dynamic Psychology of Counselling and when we met she talked about “divorcing without conflict” and introduced me to the notion of a “good divorce”. Lisa is a very smart Lawyer, but more than that, she also gets the emotional devastation that the divorce process can wreak; she’s seen it after all so many times…
Lisa and I sat down one day and decided we wanted to change the way people divorced – well at least some people in SW London! We wanted to use what’s known as the collaborative process to offer couples a different way of separating – a way that puts them firmly in control of the financial, emotional and legal process of divorce. We coined the term “divorcing the sane way”.
But Lisa and I, being Lisa and I, wanted to take the traditional Collaborative process a step further and truly integrate our methodologies. We didn’t want to just offer couple counselling alongside the legal process of divorce – we wanted to provide a totally different divorce experience for people – one that would leave them enhanced rather than emotionally battered and shattered – after all, turmoil, disaster and upheaval can be exceptionally creative times (e.g. progess after the Second World War).
We developed an approach to divorce based on a model used in Coaching and Professional Development called GROW. It’s based on Goal-Setting. We also looked at what really makes a difference to how relationships operate and developed a “Dialogue” model that equips couples with the ability to listen without judgement – imagine that in an emotive and hostile negotiation!? We added to this work done by the US Army on Resilience and integrated research on “strengths-based-approaches” and the positive impact this has had on well-being… And then we had a model – so went and tested it – and that is what we are still doing today – testing and refining a brand new method for “divorcing the sane way”. We never rest on our laurels – we review each and every case to improve the methods we use and ensure we get better outcomes for our clients and their families.
We offer a safe, cost effective, fair way to separate. Lisa works along side you (your partner will need their own collaborative lawyer) and me, well, I sit in the middle… the guardian of a good outcome and the on-going relationship. We call this the Five-Way process. It’s this method that gives you the best chance of walking away enhanced and equipped to be better next time, and still talking (if that’s important to you as a family).
If you’d like to know more – then please contact me kate@katedaly.co.uk or Lisa l.broddle@srb.co.uk and ask your partner to look at the Thameside Collaborative website http://www.thamesidecollablaw.co.uk to find a collaborative lawyer we can work with. 1 Couple, 2 Lawyers and 1 Family Consultant -Divorcing the sane way.