#66 My Name Is…
With John Berrens
Teens have unique struggles when their family experiences divorce or separation.
I'm joined today by Author, Psychologist and Counselor, John Berrens who used his years in the school systems to compile stories Inspired by and depicting the lives of teens' in divorces, separated and single-parent homes.
Connect with John online: johnberrensmynameis.com
LinkedIn: John Berrens
Instagram: mynameis.book
Watch the video of this interview on our YouTube channel.
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Transcript:
John Berrens 0:00
Hello, I'm John Berrens and welcome to the Life Changes Channel.
Deena Kordt 0:06
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Life comes with many changes. Some are expected. Some are unexpected, some positive, some challenging, but you don't have to navigate them alone. There are people who care and want to help you're in the right place because I'm here to connect you with them.
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Hi, I'm Deena Kordt, and author, blogger, publisher and empowerment coach. Thank you for joining me today on the Life Changes Channel podcast, where we'll cover topics around life changes that you might be facing in your career in education, health, finances, relationships, parenting, aging, real estate, lifestyle, loss, and personal growth. This show started out as a Divorce Magazine Canada podcast. But so much of the content could also apply, even if you aren't dealing with a divorce or separation. So now it's Life Changes Channel. There will still be lots of information to support you or someone you care about who is dealing with divorce or separation. I encourage you to go back and meet all the incredible guests in the earlier episodes. There is so much gold there. And hey, did you know we have a YouTube channel, a new Life Changes Channel and free magazines with articles from our team available across much of Alberta, as well as on our website, lifechangesmag.com. We also hold online divorce resource groups that are free to attend. And everyone is welcome. Check out the links in the show notes. And be sure to join us.
We love bringing experts to you please refer to our terms of service available on our website Lifechangesmag.com. And stay tuned at the end for the legal language. Ready? Here we go.
You're about to meet a very interesting man. John Berrens is now an author. And he has taken inspiration from the teens that he met when he spent years in the school system as a psychologist and a counselor, the kids that he was working with, we're experiencing life, in broken homes in divorce and separation. And he took those inspirations and created stories that help us understand better what they were experiencing in these kids, when they were in groups with him. They didn't feel so alone when they met other kids that had similar experiences. This is really fascinating. Let's meet him.
Welcome, John, this is just a pleasure to have you here with me today. I'm gonna have you're gonna have to carry the show today. Because as you can tell, I don't have much of a voice. So this interview isn't about me. Anyways, this is about you the work you've done, the book that you've written, which is phenomenal. And I am a lucky recipient of a couple copies. And for anybody that goes to our YouTube channel, they can see this copy that I'm showing them and they can have a look and be able to find that we will also include links in the show notes so that they can get a copy for themselves. So welcome, John. I, I'm really very interested in your story. And what led you to write this book and do the work that you do. So please tell us about yourself and how this all came about.
Unknown Speaker 4:21
Okay. Just a little bit about myself. I started out in graduate school in a clinical psychology program. And when I did my internship from a clinical psych program up at Oakland University up in Michigan, I was in a setting where I had access to a school and I just preferred to work with the young kids. So after I finished that program, I went back to the University of Cincinnati and picked up this coursework I needed to work in schools as a school psychologist. Real early in my career school psychologist, I just noticed that a disproportionate number of kids I was seeing We're from divorce separated or, or single parent families. Now, as a school psychologist, the majority of my time was spent doing evaluations. So I really did not have a whole lot of opportunity to see kids either visually or to run groups and that kind of thing. But that's where I was pulled. And after five years of working as a school psychologist, I went back and got my PhD in School Psychology. And the pool was still there by about nine years into working as a as a school psychologist, and it's a great profession, but I was just, I was constantly being pulled towards working with kids individually. And when you work as a school psychologist, at least in my setting, a lot of it was doing evaluations for special education and moving on.
John Berrens 5:48
And again, while I was doing that, there's an organization in the Cincinnati area called Beech acres, who was at the time running a variety of programs around the city for kids from divorce, they call them divorce groups. And they ran them out of churches out of community centers and things like that. And they offered training to run these particular groups, which I think was about my third year of practice. I went to their training. And from then on in, I started running divorce groups in schools. Now, when I was working as a school psychologist, I didn't have much opportunity to do it. But 10 years into it. I said, I don't really want to do this anymore. So I did what many of my colleagues thought was career suicide, and changed from being a psychologist to being a school counselor. But I'd worked in schools enough that I knew that school counselors in middle schools or junior High's, really had the opportunity to work with kids. Unfortunately, high school counselors are involved an awful lot with getting kids off to college and counting credits and all that crazy stuff. And that just wasn't my thing at all. So I was lucky, I landed a job in a really good suburban district in Cincinnati, at that point in time to school was a junior high. So we had seventh, eighth and ninth graders. And shortly about five years, five or six years into it, they started the movement to middle schools, which was sixth, seventh and eighth graders.
So then I spent 22 years in that district working with with either junior high for about the first eight, or nine and then 20, the rest of the remainder of my time was spent working with with with middle school students. So now I got to see lots of kids individually. And again, that was that which I had noticed early on in my career that I was seeing lots of kids, you know, the kids were coming in for behavior issues, they were coming in, because they were anxious, they were coming in because they were depressed, some of them were coming in for academic issues. And frequently, what you found was the root of the issue was the turmoil that was going on in the home, which frequently centered around mom and dad's mom and dad going their separate ways or heading in that direction. So I just started running those things, I started seeing more kids individually. And I really found the group's work so much better than then being seen seeing kids individually.
And in my read The reason I the reason that or how that came upon me, because when I would run groups, and this was all all the years I did it, you know, you always injured group at the end of the school year, and you kind of do a little evaluation with the kids, would you like what did you like was issues? Or wasn't this useful? What would you change all those kinds of questions you asked them, and I constantly heard from them. I always thought I was alone until I was in this group setting. I didn't realize that Susie over there hit it way worse than I had it. Or mark on this side of the room. Boy, he didn't have it so bad or whatever. And he just they just it was it there was a camaraderie a coming together amongst a group. I always found it interesting, because when I worked for Oak Hills, the large public school system, you know, we had anywhere well into junior high, we hit 300 Some kids per grade level, when we turned to middle schools, we hit between two and 220. About per grade level.
So when you assemble a group of eight to 12 kids, sometimes none of those kids knew each other very well. You might have two kids that knew each other they knew they might have known each other's names, but to say they really knew each other that just really didn't exist in most in most groups. But by the end of the year, you'd be surprised the friendships that had formed because they had a common bond doesn't mean that they hung out on weekends or they were on the same basketball or volleyball team. But but there was there was a friendship and camaraderie that developed between those kids. Therefore, I was really sold on the whole group thing. You know, it just playing it just played worked. My last eight years when I work because I retired out of the public schools system after 32 years, and it'll hire you retire because you're working for nothing because the pension is pretty darn good.
So I retired and and they're gonna set out for two years and was getting bored to tears. And a good friend of mine called me and said she had this job in a parochial school was actually being hired by a public school entity in place their parochial school. And I worked there for eight years part time, immediately started running the groups again immediately saw the kids individually again, and you know, I was just a mirror image of what I saw in the public school, lots of kids running around lots of kids made lots of kids angry, lots of kids upset. It, so much of it stemmed from what was going on around them around the families. When I when I got to the book, how did I get the write the book? Well, one of the one of my one of my dreams, which never occurred, was I wanted the kids in one of my groups to write chapters for the book book that they would write letters or something. And we'd assembled into a book, I had a really good group that I was kind of convincing to do that, convincing them to do that. And then COVID, hip, and Elena. And I never saw him again. The only the only way I saw any of those kids, again, in my 30 to 40 3040 years of running groups, that last group, I was probably closer to than any group I've ever run. They're all seniors in high school this year. But they would continue to come back and visit me two of their names are on the back of the book, they reviewed the book for me. But again, I was kind of caught with, okay, these kids for years have told me I always felt that they were alone, they always felt that they were alone.
But the flip side of that coin was, if I'm in a school of I'll go back to the 220 or pluses rounded off the 200 that I saw in the public school setting. If close to 50% of their kids, this families came from a split of family. And I was seeing maybe a couple of groups a year, 24 kids a year, I was seeing a small fraction of the kids who probably would have benefited. So what can I do to reach some of those other kids. So I started reading stories. It wasn't hard for me, you know, it all just came out. I mean, I have 1000 experiences that I've that I've seen from kids over the years. None of the stories in the book, are based on any one kid. That's all a little pick from this kid pick from that kid and put it down on paper. And it really was easy to me even though I never considered myself a writer. It just kind of flowed. And so when I when I got done with the book, besides taking it to a number of professionals meeting some teachers, some psychologists and social workers to say, you know, is this is this worth it? Is this useful? I also took it to some students who at that point in time, I guess they were sophomores in high school. Yeah. And and said Rigas. And they got back to me. And they said, I went to a number of them said, I wish I'd had this when I was younger. This is useful, how can we get this book out there.
So we went through the process of getting it out there. And that's in a nutshell, that's how I kind of got from being a school psychologist to hit a stronger desire to see individual kids or see kids in groups and running programs with kids. But most of my time was spent doing traditional school psychology things, to getting to a point where my job was to see kids working in the counseling role. And, you know, I, I've enjoyed I enjoyed it probably wouldn't have retired when I did, this is my second year in retirement. But there were some family things going on with an elderly mom, so we retired. So, you know, that's where we are at this point in time.
Beautiful gift to have, not only the skill, but that pull to serve kids in that place. And unfortunately, like you've identified, there's a very high percentage of kids that are experiencing this and could use that kind of support. I find it really interesting that a group setting was so beneficial to them, you know, that they really felt they could connect and understand that they aren't alone in that, you know, feeling shame and guilt or embarrassment, you know, whatever that might be that struggle that they're in.
Well, you know, the group also empowered or empowered kids. Because, first of all, not only were you giving them skills of how to cope and what to do and how to handle it, Mom was doing this or dad was doing that out of your head, Dad's girlfriend to deal with her mom's boyfriend to deal with. And now we live in this crummy little apartment, we used to live in this nice home, he, you're working through all these things and teaching them. But but you also empowered them to give their ideas to the other kids in the group. You know, they weren't, I mean, the best group meetings were the ones where I taught the least. So you know, you were really we're empowering kids. And this didn't happen early in the year, you know, it took time throughout, because we would, when I would run these groups in schools, we would generally meet twice, twice a month, for the for the length of the school year. So we would meet somewhere in the neighborhood of 18 to 20 times throughout the course of a school year. And you could see the kids grow, you can see the kids grow in confidence, you could see the kids look at somebody across the group and say, Hey, have you ever thought of doing this, this is what I did when my when my dad's girlfriend started acting this way. Or sometimes when I feel down, you know, I lose myself in my music, I put on my ear bug bugs, and I just kind of that's how I chill. So they would give each other ideas and in that in itself was was it was a benefit. It wasn't, you know, there were other things, once you kind of go into a group, you don't know what's gonna come out. And that was cool. I enjoyed watching that. That's
amazing. I love how you say that the best meetings are the ones where you talk the least. Because that that was that's a testament to the environment that you created for them, that they could trust each other, be vulnerable, be supportive. And it is empowering, when you see that something that you share from that space is is helpful to someone else.
Yeah, I'd like to think they learned a lot, not only about the divorce, but about themselves. One of the notice didn't happen a whole lot of times, but But it happened occasionally I would get a call from a parent at the end of the year. And, and this is not the beat up on people that do individual therapy. But they would say, you know, I hit my kid and came in private counseling for eight months, and it didn't do squat. And I can tell a change in them since they've been attending this group at school. And you know, you pat yourself on your back and you say, Well, you know, I've complete a side, but I also I volunteered for eight years in an organization that worked with grieving kids, when that when it hits somebody significant in their family die. And I didn't work with the kids, I worked with the parents in that in that particular organization, other people work with the kids and parents would cause it or get it ran for about nine months throughout the years started in September. And in the first week in June. And and parents would talk about, about how their kids should change in their grieving process over the course of the year. And again, I kept I would constantly tell the parents, it's the power of the group. It's the power of the group, I firmly believe in that. I saw it with the divorce group for 20 years, I saw it in the in the grieving groups with this organization in Cincinnati, which I work which I volunteered with for 10 years, I saw it there also, there's just something about knowing that I'm not alone out in this boat, and then on the ocean by myself. It just it just makes a huge, huge difference.
How you came up with the title of the book, it's the title of the book is "My Name Is..."
Well, I started, I started the chapter that way. I started the first the first couple chapters, and wrote the first couple of stories and I started in the same way. And I thought I think I got something here. And then I kept thinking watch it start the next one a different way. It all, they all started the same way. It was just easy was an easy way for me to get started to write each each each chapter. It's interesting. After I wrote the book, I took it to a good friend of mine who is a She's published, probably a dozen or more young adult historical nonfiction books. And I took it to her and she read it and she said she really liked it. She She spent you want to change, you want to turn each one of these chapters into a single book and of itself. So that's a little beyond my skill level. But you know, it she's and we were sitting here, she says, What are you going to call it? And that's it? I'm not so sure, but I'm thinking about my name is she Oh, that works. And we just kind of stuck with in the bath. You know, again, after the book was written, I think there were 12 different professionals that I had read it before I even thought about having having it published. And because yeah, as I said, I never considered myself a writer. And I didn't want to make a fool of myself. So So I got constant Pat's on the back. Yeah, this works. This works. And the cover was fun because a lady who I worked with her daughter happened to go to Xavier Univer We're sitting in Cincinnati in graphic arts. And I knew this kid because she went through the school. So I call this young lady up and I said, Hey, you want to design a cover for me. And in about two weeks, she sent me three, and I didn't like them. And I like part of one of the one she said, as I said, work on this and put this I threw an idea at her. And she came back with that one. And my wife and I both looked at it, we should this works. And it works. As far as I'm concerned. It works. So so it was. So I'm
curious to know. I'm curious to know, John, what has happened like this is quite a new book. What has happened, though, in your life, and in the lives of people that you have shared this with now?
Well, several people were using the book several several counselors, therapists, psychologists are using it. The book has had, it's been an interesting, interesting to watch this acceptance. Because people who work in the in the in the people, professions, meaning counselors, teachers, psychologists, nurses, they have been nothing but praise for it. A number of people who have nothing to do, they're married themselves, they but they're more in the business world. Some of them have no idea why I wrote it. You know, they're in a few people I know who have read it, who themselves have been divorced. They couple of them. Were a little bit taken aback. Yet another person I know who read it, who happens to be an MD, he wrote a really nice review for me. And I didn't ask him to. He wrote a really nice review. And he had been divorced 15 years or so. And one of his comments in his review is this book made me think back to why my daughter maybe was the way she was when when I was going through my divorce. And I thought, huh, that's it. Yes. Some people, you know, were who I know who were divorced, who read it. They were like, I think it made him feel uncomfortable. That's okay. And other, you know, and other people who were just don't work with people a lot. They couldn't quite understand why why it was read why it was written? Well, okay, well, what does this make a difference? Would you write this flip along? The one guy said, you know, this story is real sad. Why would anybody want to read this? As well, there's supposed to be sad. Because sometimes kids, this is a real crummy situations.
Yeah. Have you had a feedback from other kids other than the ones that reviewed it?
Not many know. And the difficulty I'm having right now is getting the book out to teams. I've tried to find somebody who can do the social media to be honest with you do the social media publication for me, because public public publicizing for me, because I am not comfortable or feel skilled at all in doing that kind of thing. So I, I know the majority of things that have sold had been sold to adults, although they're my primary audience when I wrote it, which teams. So I've got a couple couple irons in the fire for hopefully in the next couple of months, we can get some things off the ground, because I know, you know, I've read numerous things. And I've talked to people and everybody says, you want to share with the teams, you got to get on tick tock, and it's got to be on top of books. And I just, I'm not terribly comfortable with doing that myself. You know, so I'm looking for assistance in that area. But there's another friend who is an author who wrote a book on Alzheimer's, Toby and her book did not sell very well for several years. And then what point in time or somebody picked it up who was a nurse that worked on an Alzheimer's floor, and she put it out to prove her professional chat group. And overnight, she sold several 1000 copies. So I know that it's there. I know that it's good. I've been told it's good for enough by enough people. But it's it Christine keeps telling me John given time it sometimes it takes people several years and she said to get legs
trying to be patient. Yes. And it is quite new. So you know, my audience will also hear about it. And I've shared it with some youth workers as well. So you know, this has no borders, kids, kids and how they are affected by divorce has no borders because I mean, you're joining us, us. I'm in Canada. This is relevant to kids everywhere.
No matter where you are. Yeah. Yeah,
I love that.
Unknown Speaker 24:58
So you know, I just I'm doing a conference, actually, next week, next Tuesday up in Columbus. It's called the Ohio conference. And it's a conference primarily attended by private counselors, school counselors, social workers, psychologists, that type of those types of people doing a session up there. And I'm doing it, I'm running the groups. And, you know, as I was preparing my my thing, I just keep trying to emphasize that issue of sometimes you're the only person whose kids have to go to something which working with middle school students, you know, that 13 to 1412 1314 15 year old kid, Junior High Middle School, they don't go to moms and dads to talk for the most part, they sometimes have their maybe one good friend, and you'd be surprised how many of them have a good friend, if they don't even talk to about this stuff, that means a whole lot to him, you know, and in the group type thing is an outlet for them. You know, and again, I'm not beating up on individual counseling. But I mean, I've worked in the schools law long enough, and worked with kids long enough and not even about divorce, if you've got a kid that you think needs to go to a therapist or counselor wherever you want to call them. So often, kids see that as mom or dad are making me do that. They're sending me to doctor so and so. And so, even though you can have some really skilled people out there, sometimes that door is shut before they even get into the day before they even give it a shot, right. But pull them in with a group of kids and have doughnuts for him, if it's in the morning, you know, silly stuff like that, that make them feel comfortable. It just makes a difference. And again, it's another reason you know, it works is so many of these kids over the years, you know, they're in the group. And then sometimes on the off weeks, you look up and who's standing at your door, but one of those youngsters, because something happened the night before. And they just want to unload or sometimes they just want to come in.
John Berrens 27:13
So I think it works, I have confidence that it works, I hope that we can eventually get the book out to the kids. Because I think kids reading it can realize that again, I'm not alone in this in this in this mess. And you know, even the other thing was a lot of I think parents don't get is that the way the youngsters adapt to whatever the situation is which cause the split up it changes is the kids change. I'm gonna give you a for instance, let's say mom and dad split up when when when the youngster is is five or six years old, then let's say it was a reasonably civil divorce. And they have the custody arrangement. And I'll give you a typical one for down here. You know you visit dad every, every Wednesday and every other weekend. And, and those things can be pretty in the kids sometimes adopt quite well to that. And then suddenly, they hit about age 12 or 13. Those visits aren't so much fun anymore. When they're when they're and not, not everybody. But for a lot of kids. When there's five or six or seven, you can go to dads and go to McDonald's or you can go out to a movie or you can go play putt putt or you can do this that or whatever. And suddenly you get a little bit older and those things aren't so much fun anymore. And suddenly your dad's on Sunday afternoons or it could be mom's I don't mean to be picking on dad here. And in in. There's nothing to do. Or if you've got two or three kids, as I pointed out in one of the stories and I've heard this numerous times from kids, you've got kids with a reasonable wage span and they're all going to visit dad. And what the little one wants to do the old one wants nothing to do with it when when maybe when the divorce occurred and a little one was real little and the only little was six or seven it was okay. But now you got a 14 year old and an eight year old now I do the same things when I go visit them. And that can cause strain, which wasn't seen in the past.
And sometimes the parents have a difficult time understanding that. Sometimes the kids don't under they needed a leg up but they don't know why they don't like it when you're you're not putting that much fun anymore. You're 14, you'd rather go hang out with your buddies. Or you know, again, a real common thing which happens when kids get to be a little bit older is is and this occurs more likely if mom and dad don't live real close to each other. You know I go to school here and here's where all my friends are and it's Friday. night and they want to do this. And I'm supposed to go visit dad every other weekend and dance 45 minutes away. And that isn't real nice about allowing mom to switch weekends or less time picking on dance again. But mom isn't isn't good about letting letting them switch weekends. Or maybe it's two weekends in a row that I want to be doing stuff with my friends, or maybe I'm on a team and dad can't get me there. Those those kinds of issues come up all the time. And sometimes parents don't get why those issues are such a big issue, because they weren't an issue maybe a couple years ago. Now they are. So all those things come up. That's why I think doing these kinds of groups for because you know, middle school age is just, most people think you're crazy. If you would like working in middle schools, I totally enjoyed working in middle schools. I remember I for a while I taught at the university level when we taught developmental psych for a while. And a couple of times, and we get to adolescence, and I always introduced it, I said this is not a developmental periods and disease.
And, you know, everybody who who's worked with kids kind of chuckles at that, because they get it. I mean, kids are a little crazy at that time. And you have to get them through that point. And divorce can split ups, whatever whatever the case may be. And a lot of times it's unmarried situations, which is something we didn't see as much of that in the 80s and 90s, as we see now. Because I've had many kids in my group who were in the group because mom and dad never gotten married, the egg was around for a year or two. After the head, the child and dad took off. And maybe it's never in the picture anymore. But that causes another another whole host of issues. I never see Dad, Dad never comes to dads and doughnuts at school because I haven't seen dad in 10 years. You know, so it's just, and those things just become, I think they become I hate to use the word inflamed, but I can't think of a better word, they just become a bigger issue. I think sometimes when kids get to that sixth, seventh, eighth ninth grade age level. I from when I was working as a school psychologist, many moons ago, I did have a high school that I had to serve. And I read a few divorce groups in high school. And a lot of the issues settled down a little bit. And I think part of that is and again, I don't have a whole lot of experience with the high school kids. But I think part of it was is they're old enough to be out of the house, they're gone. If there's something that's making them uncomfortable or angry, or whatever they take off with their friends, they go to their part time job, their organizations, or clubs or whatever activities they have going on their school, so it's a whole lot easier to get away from it. And they're getting ready for that next step when they're 17 or 18 years old, versus when they're 14 or 15 or 13. So it's a little bit of a different ballgame.
Yeah, it is such a tough age. And my heart has always had a soft spot for the teens as well. I just feel like even if they aren't dealing with extra people in their families, or tension and stress already, they're in this limbo state where they are children, they aren't adults, they're expected to act mature. But they're still being treated like children. So it's a very tough spot to be in. And then you add all this other, you know, you're trying to figure out where you fit in the world with your friends. And now your family is also not a very stable place. So yeah,
completely completely. Yeah, it's, yeah, those years are hard enough to begin with, for an awful lot of kids. So you throw the family on stableness, it just kind of it kind of mixes the pot even a little bit more. And, you know,
I, I really thank you for creating, you know, for the work that you've done. And now for finding a way to share this to reach more. I think it's important that adults read this for the reasons that you've mentioned. And, you know, get this in the hands of teens, and that might be the channel is it'll be the adults who read it, and then share it, you know, maybe an auntie, for example that's observing, you know, their niece or nephew is dealing with something like this. I appreciate your time today to allow us to get to know you. And to share this resource that is amazing. I will be adding the link for that to the resource page that I'm building on the website. It's not ready yet, but that will be definitely a real resource that we will share there. And as well in the show notes for this episode, we will have information about how people can find this I just fantastic. Do you have any parting thoughts that you would like to share with people?
No, just, you know, I mean, hang in there and be patient. Don't let your own for the parents don't let your own.
I don't know, what's the word I can't get to what a word I want to use, but allow your kids to be themselves, except the fact that their kids are not going to be perfect. You know, they're going to screw up. You know, except them, not that they don't need to be limits and boundaries. You know, you can't buy him out. You got to let him make them. Let them make their mistakes and let them face the consequences. But but be a little accepting the fact that they're going through some stuff. And don't beat yourself up because you okay, you got a divorce, okay? It happens. If your kids are unhappy and maybe part of maybe a lot of it is because of what happened between you and your spouse. But don't beat yourself up either. Because if you beat yourself up, the kids are going to see that and they pick up on what you're going through.
That's, that's powerful. So be patient with yourself. Be patient with your kids. Be patient with the process, and and reach out and ask.
Deena Kordt 36:20
Hopefully you heard something today that helps you wherever you might be in life. Do you have questions or a suggestion for a topic you want to know more about? Let me know. Check the show notes for all the contact information. Follow this podcast and find us on social. Know anyone who might find this information helpful. Be a friend and share it. And hey, thank you for hanging out with me today. Keep smiling up beautiful smile. The world needs your sunshine.
It means a lot that you spend this time with us and meet our experts and professionals who can help you through whatever life changes you're facing. Please refer to our terms of service available on our website Lifechangesmag.com The link is in the show notes. Our disclaimer, Divorce Magazine Canada, Life Changes Magazine and channel and divorce resource groups are intended to educate and provide quality credible resource information. The contents should not be used as factual until consultation with the appropriate professionals for any guidance, Divorce Magazine Canada, Life Changes Magazine and Life Changes channel as well as the divorce resource groups do not constitute endorsements for nor liability for any claims made in the presenting of this information.
