2023 International Shared Parenting Day Event
Thank you to all who attended National Parents Organization’s first International Shared Parenting Day event! Thanks to you, our event was a success. If you were not able to attend, you can watch a video of the event on YouTube at this link.
April 26 is such an important day for shared parenting. It is the day that the country’s first explicit statewide equal shared parenting law was passed by lawmakers in Kentucky in 2018. The groundbreaking law made 50/50 custody presumed or considered for children whose parents are separated or divorce. In addition to Kentucky, these types of laws were passed in Arkansas in April 2021 and, most recently, West Virginia in March 2022.
Since 2019 when Kentucky declared April 26 to be Shared Parenting day on the anniversary of its law, five other states have proclaimed April 26 Shared Parenting Day: Missouri, Arizona, Maryland, Massachusetts, and South Dakota. In addition, the city of El Paso, Texas proclaimed April 26 Shared Parenting Day in 2022, and the cities of Lakeland, Florida, Bartow, Florida, and San Antonio, Texas proclaimed April 26 Shared Parenting Day in 2023.
Shared Parenting Day has brought so much awareness to the importance of shared parenting after divorce or separation and along with our partner organizations, we hope to further spread the message of shared parenting by holding this event every April 26. This year we wanted to celebrate April 26 by bringing everyone involved in the fight for shared parenting together to share knowledge and support and with a lot of help we were able to do just that.
Thank you to our amazing guest speakers: William Fabricius, Matt Hale, Emma Johnson, Andre Rainey, Andrew & Christine Carr, Jennifer Harman, Ashley-Nicole Russell, and Ned Holstein. They each provided a unique perspective on shared parenting and how to make it successful, as well as words of wisdom from the work they’ve done. Thank you to Marcy Melville at Wildflower Events for her invaluable assistance putting this event together. And a special thank you to our event emcee and featured presenter, Teresa Harlow. Her 4 C’s of Collaborative Co-Parenting are a wonderful guide to successful co-parenting.
Thank you also to our event sponsors: Onward, Dads Divorce Guide, the Gene C. Coleman Family Law Centre, and the International Council On Shared Parenting. Through their generous donations we were able to produce this event and bring leading speakers and researchers on shared parenting together.
Finally, thank you to all of the shared parenting supporters and all of the people and organizations working tirelessly to bring shared parenting to every state in the country. April 26 couldn’t be Shared Parenting Day without your hard work. We are looking forward to the April 26th when we can celebrate every state guaranteeing children have both parents in their lives.
