The law about parenting agreements
A well-designed parenting agreement is an important investment towards workable, cooperative parenting after separation. It can cover such issues as where the children will live, how and when will they spend time with each parent, who is responsible for what and how the parents will communicate and make decisions.
Under Australian family law, a parenting agreement can take form as parenting plan, or in parenting ‘consent orders’. Which to choose depends on your circumstances.
In the background, there is the balance of parenting law in the Family Law Act. It is important to understand this to make an appropriate and sustainable agreement.
Your challenges
- Deciding on the appropriate model for your agreement
- Identifying the issues that should be covered in it
- Deciding your position on each issue
- Successfully negotiating the agreement with the other parent
- Putting your agreement in writing
- Filing in court for consent orders. (This can be hard…)
How we can help
Tribe meets you where you’re at with your preparations for making a parenting agreement, with a range of services for both parenting plans and parenting orders. We can:
- help you decide format and map out content
- reality-test your positions on each issue, including in relation to parenting law.
- help you design a negotiating strategy
- draft your agreement
- review and provide suggestions for your own agreement draft
- prepare from scratch or advise you about documentation for consent orders and filing
