Counselor Training

Upcoming Workshop

When couples become a Two-home family

Presented by

Sheri Vernon, MA, LMHC

Beth Hirnle, MA, LMHC, NCC

4- CE credits

(1 - Ethics 3 General)

Cost $150

Date 10/16/26

10:00 am- 3:00 pm

Location: 927 N.Northlake Way, Suite 301

Seattle, WA 98103

Limited to 12 in-person participants

Virtual option available

When a Couple Becomes a Two-Home Family: Clinical, Ethical, and Divorce-Process Guidance for Therapists

Couples do not always enter therapy with a shared goal of saving their relationship. Sometimes one partner is leaving, sometimes both partners have decided to separate, and sometimes therapy itself becomes the place where the future of the relationship must be clarified.

This interactive four-hour continuing education workshop helps therapists confidently navigate the clinical transition from couples therapy to separation and divorce support. Participants will learn how to work with mixed-agenda couples, protect client autonomy, manage ethical boundaries when attorneys and courts become involved, understand major divorce resolution options, and help parents create emotionally safer two-home families.

The workshop includes practical case examples, ethical decision-making exercises, an introduction to mediation and Collaborative Divorce, and concrete tools therapists can immediately use with separating parents and families.

Participants will be able to:

Differentiate at least three clinical indicators that suggest a couple needs relationship-repair therapy, discernment/decision-focused work, separation-focused therapeutic support, or referral to another divorce professional.
Apply an autonomy-supportive therapeutic stance when one or both partners are considering separation or divorce, consistent with ethical standards regarding client self-determination and decision-making.
Identify at least four ethical or clinical risks that may arise when treating therapists become involved with attorneys, courts, parenting disputes, records requests, or custody-related matters, and describe appropriate professional responses.
Compare mediation, Collaborative Practice, and litigation/court processes across at least five dimensions, including professional roles, decision-making authority, communication structure, conflict management, and use of interdisciplinary professionals.
Identify developmentally informed interventions that help separating parents reduce children's exposure to adult conflict and support children's adjustment to living within a two-home family system.
Distinguish the roles of the treating therapist, divorce coach, Collaborative divorce coach, and child specialist and identify at least three indicators that suggest the clinical work should be supplemented by or transitioned to a divorce-specific professional.
Develop an appropriate interdisciplinary referral strategy that preserves therapeutic boundaries while connecting separating families with legal, financial, parenting, and child-development resources when those needs fall outside the therapist's clinical role.