International Council on Shared Parenting Celebrates 10th Anniversary

This month marks the 10th anniversary of the International Council on Shared Parenting. I’m writing to celebrate that milestone and to praise ICSP for its terrific work over the past decade.

When a parent first comes in contact with a family law system that doesn’t adequately protect and preserve a child’s relationship with both loving and fit parents, it’s easy to believe that this was an unusual experience—that somehow one’s family has been subjected to something that few other families experience. Those parents who look into these matters quickly learn that their own experience is not unique or even rare. Many states have very weak laws protecting the relationship between children and their parents when parents are living apart and most family courts in the U. S. are all too likely to marginalize one parent in the children’s lives. If one does even more research, one finds that the U. S. is not at all unique in this regard. The sad truth is that, around the world, children’s relationship with one of their parents is routinely degraded when the parents live apart, even when both parents are fit and willing and able to be active and engaged parents.

Furthermore, it turns out that the myths that allow these practices to continue in so many countries around the world are similar. They include outdated conceptions of family dynamics, gender biases, false beliefs about how shared parenting works, and ignorance about the benefits of shared parenting for fathers, mothers, and (most importantly) children. And there are, in countries that are widely different in other ways, quite predictable opponents of presumptions of shared parenting.

Because of these similarities, there was a great need for collaboration between shared parenting advocates in different countries. The ICSP meets this need. It is the premier international shared parenting organization in the world and it has a unique composition. It brings together social scientists studying child well-being, family practitioners (attorneys, clinical psychologists, social workers, and more), and reform activists.

NPO is proud to have been actively involved with ICSP from the beginning. NPO founder, Ned Holstein, served on the Board of ICSP until 2018 and, since that time, I’ve had the honor of serving in that capacity.

ICSP has sponsored six international conferences on shared parenting that have brought together researchers, practitioners, and reform activists from around the world to share their knowledge and experiences. In 2017, as a result of the hard work of Ned Holstein and some generous donors, NPO hosted the ICSP/NPO conference in Boston. This is still one of the most significant shared parenting conferences ever and the videos of most of the presentations are available for free at this site.

Just last May, ICSP held its most recent conference in Athens, Greece. The videos of all of the presentations, workshops, and roundtable discussions are available online.

For more information, please see this press release from ICSP.