The National Network of Separated Family Centres is a new initiative that is bringing together community based services around a philosophy of providing whole family support to families experiencing divorce or separation.

The vision of the network is to deliver consistent, high quality support through committed professionals and volunteers with an understanding of the particular issues and specific needs of the communities they serve. Whilst working to a common template and defined ethos, each of the services uses its knowledge of the community in which it works to shape its delivery.

Our aim is for each service to create a local hub around which it engages with other community, statutory and private sector providers whilst adding in new services and programmes to help parents deal with their own and their children's experiences of separation so that they are able to make private, family based arrangements for the day-to-day care and financial provision for their children.

Each network member utilises a range of therapeutic support, therapeutic mediation services, education and guidance approaches to enable private agreements for care and provision for children after separation. These interventions are delivered within a child focused framework, which means that are not focussed on upholding the individual 'rights' of parents but on enabling each of them to overcome barriers to collaboration.

All interventions are underpinned by gender mainstreaming which ensures that they meet the different experiences and different needs of both mothers and fathers. The services within the network are joined through the Family Separation Hub.