“Every great oak started out as a small nut that stood its ground.”

I came across this quote many years ago, and I’ve liked it and used it ever since.

I am the founder of Canadian Co-Parenting Centres, and in the course of my work, I regularly assist families where the children’s relationship with one of the parents is strained or broken.  It’s often difficult to quickly determine if this is a result of parental alienation or if it is justified estrangement.  Usually it’s a combination of both, but one of them is almost always dominant.

It occurred to me that the simplest way to assess the problem is to temporarily place the children in a neutral home, for the period of two or three weeks.

An alienating parent will resist this strongly.  A good parent that is falsely being accused of alienation will be all for it.

Restoring the relationship with an alienated parent is very difficult, and it’s essentially impossible if the children continue to live with the alienating parent.

If there was a pre-screened home available to provide a place for the children to live for two or three weeks, a parenting coordinator would have the equivalent of a litmus test.  In a neutral environment, the respite from the conflict will give the children an opportunity to recover and flourish.  Without this, these situations drag on for months and years, with a dismal rate of success.

My hope is to establish an inventory of pre-screened homes across North America and around the world, so that no matter where a family lives, the children can be placed in a Neutral Home in their own community, so their life is disrupted as little as possible.

There are so many other worthy initiatives that are demanding my time, that this one is getting very little of my attention, but it now has a domain name and a website, so that’s a start.  I’m looking forward to hearing from you, and will be grateful for whatever contribution you are willing to make.

Sincerely,

Blain Cellars