Guides for separated parents

Practical guidance on the things separated parents in England and Wales actually have to sort out — the schedule, the holidays, the money, the messages, and the record of what was agreed. Written by us, reviewed by practising family mediators, and specific to how this works here rather than in the United States.

We're not lawyers. Where something needs legal advice, we say so and point you at a solicitor.

Start with what you're dealing with #

Co-parenting schedules → Which nights, which pattern, what works at what age. The patterns UK families actually use, what each one produces in overnights, and how to choose between them.

School holidays → The six weeks, the half terms, Christmas, Easter, INSET days. How to split them, and how far ahead to agree.

Money and children's costs → What child maintenance covers and what it doesn't. Uniform, trips, clubs, childcare — who pays for what, and how shared care changes the calculation.

Parenting plans → What goes in one, whether it's binding, and what Cafcass's "Our Child's Plan" is now called and why.

Talking to your co-parent → Communication that doesn't escalate, parallel parenting when cooperation isn't possible, and what to do when your co-parent won't engage.

Records and court → Keeping a record that's worth something, what messages prove and don't, and what happens when arrangements are breached.

After mediation → What happens once you've reached agreement — the Memorandum of Understanding, the parenting plan, consent orders, and making an agreement that actually holds.

If you're at the very beginning #

Three things are usually true in the first few months, and they're worth knowing early.

There is no legal default. England and Wales have no presumption of 50/50, and no automatic entitlement to any particular pattern. Courts start from what's best for the child, which means the arrangement is yours to agree.

Most families never go near a court. Around four in five arrangements are worked out between parents or through mediation. Court is the exception, and an expensive, slow one.

Specific beats fair. "Reasonable contact" causes more arguments than any other phrase in this area. An arrangement that spells out days, times, places and holidays is harder to write and much easier to live with.

How OurPath fits #

We build a co-parenting app for separated parents in England and Wales — it takes your parenting plan and runs it as a live calendar, keeps messages and costs on a record neither parent can rewrite, and gives your mediator a way to set the whole thing up with both of you in the room. What it does →

These guides stand on their own, though. Use them whether or not you ever use the app.