When a personal relationship ends, parties often are left with bitter feelings towards each other.
This can become a problem where parties still have to see and contact each other because they share parental rights and responsibilities over children.
Parenting Plans are useful agreements designed with the specific purpose of managing relationships between parents in a manner that promotes, ensures and protects the best interests of their children.
The Children’s Act provides that Parenting Plans must follow a set format and may contain specific terms dealing with where and with whom a child is to live, the maintenance of a child, contact between the child and the parents or other people, and the schooling/religious/cultural upbringing of a child.
To be enforceable Parenting Plans must be prepared through the assistance of a family advocate, social worker or psychologist, or through mediation, and need to be registered with the office of the Family Advocate or incorporated into an order of Court.
