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Anyone can be involved in the care of your child. Think about who is important in their life. You can choose to write down your decisions about how to care for your child. Once completed, this is called a parenting plan or a private parenting agreement.
You and your child's safety come first when trying to sort out parenting disagreements outside the Family Court. If you or your child are experiencing family violence, some of these services may not be right for you.
A parenting plan or private parenting agreement makes sure everyone involved understands what they’ve agreed to. It’s flexible, can often be made quickly, and is generally cost-effective.
If everyone agrees, you can review and make changes at any time. You don’t need to formalise your decisions with the Family Court.
If you’re not sure where to start, these resources and services may help depending on your situation.
The Parenting Plan Workbook helps parents, guardians, and whānau think about the decisions they’ll need to make about how to care for their child, after a separation or change in family situation. This workbook can also help you come up with your own private parenting agreement.
Sharing the workbook with your child can help them cope with the changes, as they will see what you have agreed to and how it impacts them. Everyone who signs the agreement should keep a copy.
Download the Parenting Plan Workbook [PDF, 6.1 MB]
If you want a copy sent to you, freephone the Ministry of Justice on 0800 224 733.
This free course helps parents, guardians, and whānau understand how separation affects children. Parents who have done the course say it helped them to see things from their child’s point of view.
Parenting Through Separation course
This service helps parents, guardians, and whānau work out how to care for a child. A family mediator will help to run a session between everyone involved and make sure the discussion is focused on the child's best interests.
This service offers free legal advice for people who qualify. A Family Legal Advice Service lawyer can help you understand:
You don’t need to do anything else. The benefit of a private parenting agreement is it is flexible and you can make changes at any time if everyone agrees. You can often do this quickly and it’s generally cost-effective.
Sometimes, you may need to apply to the Family Court to turn your parenting arrangements into a court order. You may want to do this if you think you may need the court to enforce the ‘Parenting Order’ later. For example, if someone else keeps asking to make changes, but you want them to stick to the original agreement.
You may need to let other people or groups know about the new care arrangements, once the arrangements are in place.
Think about the people involved in your child’s life and what they might need to know. For example, if you have a 'Parenting Order' that says your child will be picked up by their grandparents from school every Friday, you may want to let the school or the child’s teacher know.
Other people or groups that may need to know about new parenting arrangements are:
We have resources available in different languages and alternate formats. Select the language or alternate format to get the resources relevant to this page.
Going through a change in your whānau situation can be hard. It's normal to feel overwhelmed. There are services available to help and support you through this time.
Visit our help page