Children and Divorce: Understanding Clinical Implications and Techniques
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Specifications
Children navigating divorce and separation often carry emotional, developmental, and relational burdens they did not choose and cannot control. Changes in homes, schedules, family rituals, school routines, relationships, finances, and parent availability can affect how children experience safety, stability, loyalty, and belonging.
For clinicians, supporting children in divorced or separating families requires more than understanding the two adults involved. Divorce affects the whole family system, including children, parents, stepparents, siblings, extended family, schools, communities, and future relationships. This training helps clinicians slow down, assess the child’s experience, and respond with developmentally appropriate support.
Alyse November, Ph.D., LCSW, ACSW, CST, and Stephanie Newberg, MEd, MSW, LCSW, bring extensive clinical experience working with divorce, co-parenting, high-conflict family dynamics, family therapy, child and adolescent concerns, and divorce mediation. Their professional experience, along with their personal understanding of divorce and blended family life, allows them to teach this topic with clinical depth, practical insight, and sensitivity to the realities children and families face.
Together, the instructors guide you through the emotional and developmental impacts of divorce before, during, and after the process. You will examine common responses from infancy through adolescence—including anxiety, behavioral changes, school challenges, loyalty conflicts, parentification, and attachment shifts. To address these issues, you will learn developmentally appropriate interventions to support children’s emotional expression, strengthen their self-advocacy, and help them identify what they can and cannot control.
Beyond the child's internal world, you will explore the practical realities shaping their daily life, such as custody exchanges, holiday schedules, special needs considerations, and navigating the differences between two households. The training tackles complex family dynamics including healthy co-parenting, parental alienation, blended family adjustments, and high-conflict communication. Crucially, you will receive guidance on managing your own countertransference and maintaining strong therapeutic boundaries, ensuring you can effectively support the family system without overstepping into custody decision-making.
Key Takeaways
- A child-centered understanding of divorce and separation: Gain a clearer understanding of how divorce affects children emotionally, developmentally, relationally, academically, and behaviorally, while recognizing that each child’s experience is shaped by age, temperament, family dynamics, and level of conflict.
- Practical clinical tools for complex family systems: Learn ways to assess children’s experiences, support transitions between homes, address loyalty conflicts and self-blame, strengthen communication, and use interventions such as CBT, play-based approaches, drawing, sand tray, and other developmentally responsive strategies.
- Greater clarity around co-parenting, boundaries, and clinician role: Explore parenting plans, co-parent communication, parental alienation concerns, blended family issues, special needs considerations, and the importance of maintaining therapeutic boundaries, neutrality, and child trust.
Why This Course?
- Clinically relevant for many practice settings: Divorce and separation may appear as a primary concern or as a secondary issue affecting children, adolescents, adults, parents, and families already presenting for other clinical concerns.
- Focused on the child and family system: Rather than treating divorce as only an adult relationship issue, this training highlights the child’s experience within the broader family, school, and community system.
- Practical guidance for difficult clinical moments: Clinicians will gain language, concepts, and intervention ideas for supporting children, communicating with parents, assessing family dynamics, and staying grounded when cases become emotionally charged or high conflict.
Learning Objectives
- Identify the effects of divorce on children.
- Assess how the specific components of co-parenting affect the whole family system.
- Apply clinical skills and interventions to address the needs of children in divorced families.
- Recognize challenges within family dynamics, including parental conflict and blended family complexities.
- Apply conflict resolution, de-escalation, and effective communication skills specific to the issues of co-parenting.
- Develop collaborative strategies with parents to address the needs of the child to create a supportive environment pre, post, and during the divorce process.
Children and families experiencing divorce need clinicians who can recognize the practical and emotional complexity of what is changing. This course offers a clinically grounded framework for helping children feel heard, supported, and less alone while assisting parents in creating more stable, responsive, and child-centered environments.
Format and Access
This is a Non-interactive, self-study course. Instruction consists of 3 hours of on-demand video and a post-test.
From the time of registration, you have six months to access the coursework. This course is intended for clinicians who provide behavioral health services. This continuing education course is designed for licensed behavioral health professionals. This is a non-interactive, self-study course. Teaching methods for this course include recorded lectures, videos, a post-test, and a course evaluation. Course access and completion instructions. Alyse November, Ph.D., LCSW, obtained her Bachelor’s degree in Psychology, her Master’s Degree in Social Work from Adelphi University, N.Y., and her PhD in Clinical Sexology from IICS. She is credentialed by the Academy of Certified Social Workers. Alyse is the founder of Different Like Me, a company with a staff of over 30 professionals providing psychotherapy, psychoeducational testing and cognitive rehabilitation. As a licensed clinical social worker, Alyse provides psychotherapy to individuals across the lifespan. A substantial portion of her practice has focused on addressing challenges faced by children, adults, seniors, and families ranging from trauma, narcissistic and borderline family recovery, aging, chronic illness, divorce, trans-care, relationships, parenting, and special needs, end of life issues, dementia, caregiving, educational challenges, anxiety, and depression. Her PhD dissertation focused on the assessment of sexual challenges and dementia. Alyse also created DLMU which is an educational platform that provides seminars for both professional and personal development. Alyse is: Stephanie Newberg, LCSW, M.Ed is a licensed psychotherapist in FL and PA, working with individuals, couples and families. She has been in practice for more than 25 years specializing in: family and couples therapy, conflict resolution, grief and loss, parenting support and the implications of divorce on children and families. In addition, Stephanie is a trained family and divorce mediator/ co-parent counselor and has received intensive training in sand tray play therapy for adolescents and children. Stephanie has led numerous workshops and presentations for adults and adolescents on relationship and communication skills, dealing with the effects of divorce on families, diversity issues, cyberbullying/effects of technology on development, nutrition and mental health, and conflict resolution skills. In addition, Stephanie has numerous publications and has been on two podcasts. Stephanie is a certified counselor for first responders, trained in neuro- emotional techniques, served as a consultant for the Council for Relationships in Philadelphia, PA and worked at the Bryn Mawr College Graduate School of Social work as an adjunct professor, supervisor, and field work liaison for social work students. The instructor(s) for this course receive compensation for their services. There are no reported conflicts of interest to disclose. This course consists of 3 continuing education hours of credit. Counselors: Telehealth Certification Institute, LLC has been approved by NBCC as an Approved Continuing Education Provider, ACEP No, 6693. Programs that do not qualify for NBCC credit are clearly identified. Telehealth Certification Institute, LLC is solely responsible for all aspects of the programs. Telehealth Certification Institute, LLC is recognized by the New York State Education Department's State Board for Mental Health Practitioners as an approved provider of continuing education for Licensed Mental Health Counselors. #MHC-0048. Many MFT licensing boards accept our courses or one of the approvals which we have from professional associations. You can check with your board to determine if your licensing board would accept this course. Telehealth Certification Institute LLC, #1609, is approved as an ACE provider to offer social work continuing education by the Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB) Approved Continuing Education (ACE) program. Regulatory boards are the final authority on courses accepted for continuing education credit. ACE provider approval period: 05/02/2024 – 05/02/2027. Social workers completing this course receive 3 clinical continuing education credits. Telehealth Certification Institute, LLC is recognized by the New York State Education Department's State Board for Social Work as an approved provider of continuing education for Licensed Social Workers #SW-0435. This course has been approved by Telehealth Certification Institute LLC, as a NAADAC Approved Education Provider, for educational credits, effective 3/6/2026. NAADAC Provider #193104, Telehealth Certification Institute LLC is responsible for all aspects of the programming. Telehealth Certification Institute LLC is approved by the American Psychological Association to sponsor continuing education for psychologists. Telehealth Certification Institute LLC maintains responsibility for this program and its content. Telehealth Certification Institute, LLC is recognized by the New York State Education Department’s State Board for Psychology as an approved provider of continuing education for Licensed Psychologists #PSY-0128. Telehealth Certification Institute, LLC is recognized by the New York State Education Department's State Board for Mental Health Practitioners as an approved provider of continuing education for Licensed Creative Arts Therapists #CAT-0093. This course qualifies for 180 minutes of instructional content as required by many national, state and local licensing boards and professional organizations. Retain your certificate of completion and contact your board or organization for specific filing requirements. This course is a non-interactive, online self-study. Participants may request a printed version of their certificate of completion to be delivered by mail. A shipping/handling fee of $6.95 will be charged per request. Shipping internationally may require an additional charge. Close Captioning is available for live webinars and recorded video presentations. You can click on the following links to view our policies:Course Details
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Instructor and Disclosures
Instructors
About Alyse November, Ph.D., LCSW, ACSW, CST
About Stephanie Newberg, MEd, MSW, LCSW
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CE Hours
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Accommodations and Policies
This course was recorded 3/27/2026
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