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The Post-Separation Abuse Podcast

Danielle Black

The Post-Separation Abuse Podcast

Hosted by Danielle Black


A direct, evidence-based podcast for people navigating all-things separation and divorce, including; post-separation abuse, family violence, parenting, property settlement and the family law system - with a relentless focus on protecting children and building a life beyond separation.  Because, the advice your lawyer gives you is only the beginning.  Family law tells you what the system can do. This podcast helps you understand what to seek, what to challenge, what to bring into the room - and how to live with the decisions, and move on with your life, afterwards.


Danielle Black is a specialist post-separation parenting coach and the founder and principal coach of Danielle Black Coaching.   Having navigated her own complex separation, and guided hundreds of clients to successful outcomes, Danielle and her coaching team specialise in helping protective parents to optimise the outcome for themselves and their children, and support clients to navigate post-separation situations that other professionals don't properly address.  


Drawing on her extensive tertiary qualifications, developmental science, research, trauma-informed practice and both professional and lived experience, she examines how abuse can continue after separation, how systems and professionals respond, and what genuinely informed decision-making and credible advocacy requires when risk, fear or power imbalance is present.


Because understanding family law is not enough.

Having a lawyer is not enough.

A lawyer can advise you about the law, legal process and evidence. But optimising your parenting outcome also requires knowledge of child development, attachment, coercive control and trauma; the capacity to remain strategic under pressure; and the confidence to advocate for what you and your children genuinely need.

This podcast examines all of those layers.


It challenges the assumptions that routinely shape post-separation outcomes: the fixation on 50/50 shared care, the misuse of “friendly parent” ideals, the belief that compromise is always constructive, and the fantasy that engaging the right professional means you can safely hand over the strategy, decision-making and advocacy.


Across the podcast, Danielle explores:

  • how post-separation abuse operates through parenting, financial and legal processes;
  • what children need after separation - and why adult notions of fairness are an inadequate guide;
  • what lawyers and other post-separation professionals were, and were not, trained to understand;
  • why standard co-parenting frameworks often fail families affected by coercive control and other forms of family violence and post-separation abuse;
  • how to assess the benefits, risks and real-world costs of negotiation, litigation and other pathways;
  • how knowledge, capacity and advocacy can materially change outcomes;
  • and what comes next, when separation and survival no longer occupy the centre of your life.


Expect direct language, research-backed analysis, practical guidance and a few cuss words - not platitudes, false balance or simplistic promises of justice.


This is not only about understanding what happened in your situation.

It is about making informed decisions now - and becoming the author, and authority, of what comes next.


To go deeper, explore The Post-Separation Parenting Blueprint™, Danielle’s flagship program for parents building the knowledge, capacity and advocacy skills needed to make informed, protective decisions after separation.

Learn more at danielleblackcoaching.com.au.

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  • 22 episodes
  • weekly
  • Avg 43 min
  • English

Episodes 22

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  • Wednesday · 1 hr 24 min

    119. Parenting without court orders: More options than you might realise

    When parenting arrangements cannot be agreed upon, many protective parents believe they have only two options: give in to what the other parent is demanding or begin family court proceedings. But those are not the only paths available. In this episode, Senior Coach Brigid Morgan shares her lived experience of navigating shared-care parenting without formal court orders in a high-conflict post-separation dynamic. She explores the certainty parents may hope court orders will provide, what orders can and cannot realistically achieve, and how a workable arrangement may sometimes be maintained through established care patterns, clear communication boundaries, parallel parenting and careful documentation. Danielle then joins the conversation to address one of the most difficult questions protective parents face: what happens when the other parent refuses to agree to arrangements or safeguards that you believe are necessary for your children? Together, Danielle and Brigid discuss: Why parenting orders are not always the “golden ticket” they can appear to be The false choice between acquiescing and immediately commencing court proceedings Parenting plans, established arrangements and the importance of 'status quo' precedents Parallel parenting when collaboration is neither safe nor realistic Protective measures that may be implemented without court orders Holding firm when faced with anger, accusations or threats of legal action The difference between avoiding conflict and protecting your children Situations in which formal orders and urgent legal advice may be necessary This episode is not an argument against parenting orders. It is an invitation to question the assumption that court is automatically the only alternative when agreement cannot be reached - and to understand that parenting without orders does not necessarily mean parenting without boundaries, structure or protection. This podcast provides general educational information and is not a substitute for legal advice specific to your circumstances. Support: If you are in Australia and need to talk to someone, 1800RESPECT (1800 737 732) is available 24/7. In an emergency, call 000. Explore the supports offered by Danielle Black Coaching The Post-Separation Parenting Blueprint™ 👉 https://www.danielleblackcoaching.com.au/the-post-separation-parenting-blueprint-1 AI Danielle - Your 24/7 Digital Coach 👉 https://www.danielleblackcoaching.com.au/meet-ai-danielle 1:1 Coaching 👉 https://www.danielleblackcoaching.com.au/1-1-coaching Claim Your Name™: Burning the Good Girl Contract 👉 https://www.danielleblackcoaching.com.au/the-contract-you-never-agreed-to The music you hear in this outro is 'Calm is Credible' - an original track created exclusively for the Post-Separation Abuse Podcast and Danielle Black Coaching. You can listen to this song, or download free, by visiting danielleblackcoaching.com.au About Danielle Black Coaching: Danielle Black is a respected authority in child-focused post-separation parenting in Australia. With over twenty years’ experience across education, counselling and coaching - alongside her own lived experience navigating a complex separation and family court journey - she supports parents to think strategically, build capacity, and protect their children’s safety and wellbeing within complex legal and relational systems. Through Danielle Black Coaching, she leads a growing team of specialist coaches and a structured support ecosystem designed to provide professionally held, evidence-informed guidance for parents navigating high-conflict separation and family court processes. Learn more at danielleblackcoaching.com.au This podcast is for educational purposes only and not legal advice. Please seek independent legal, medical, financial, or mental health advice for your situation.

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  • August 22 · 1 hr 13 min

    118. The Good Girl Contract - part six (finale): What your children actually need from you

    This is the final episode in the six-part Good Girl Contract series: Your children are not doomed by what they have experienced (and neither are you). But what happens next matters. In this episode, Danielle speaks directly to protective mothers about the work their children actually need from them: protecting while they can, modelling healthy boundaries, accepting their children’s boundaries in return, and becoming a parent their children do not have to emotionally manage. This means confronting some difficult truths. Your children will eventually determine the shape of their relationship with each parent. They may continue to love, seek approval from, or maintain a connection with a parent who has caused harm. Their relationship with that parent is not yours to design - and their love for you should never depend upon managing your feelings about it. Trauma matters. It shapes our nervous systems, our relationships and our responses. But trauma cannot become an indefinite exemption from responsibility for what we transmit to our children. The work is not to become a perfect mother. It is to interrupt the Good Girl Contract so our children inherit something different. And that requires more than boundaries. Our children need to know us as a specific person - not simply as Mum, protector, organiser, provider or function. They need to know our preferences, our edges, our contradictions, our pleasures and our name. Because the Good Girl Contract was never designed merely to make girls and women "good." It was designed to make them interchangeable. This is where that transmission ends. This ends here. This ends with us. Support: If you are in Australia and need to talk to someone, 1800RESPECT (1800 737 732) is available 24/7. In an emergency, call 000. Explore the supports offered by Danielle Black Coaching The Post-Separation Parenting Blueprint™ 👉 https://www.danielleblackcoaching.com.au/the-post-separation-parenting-blueprint-1 AI Danielle - Your 24/7 Digital Coach 👉 https://www.danielleblackcoaching.com.au/meet-ai-danielle 1:1 Coaching 👉 https://www.danielleblackcoaching.com.au/1-1-coaching Claim Your Name™: Burning the Good Girl Contract 👉 https://www.danielleblackcoaching.com.au/the-contract-you-never-agreed-to The music you hear in this outro is 'Calm is Credible' - an original track created exclusively for the Post-Separation Abuse Podcast and Danielle Black Coaching. You can listen to this song, or download free, by visiting danielleblackcoaching.com.au About Danielle Black Coaching: Danielle Black is a respected authority in child-focused post-separation parenting in Australia. With over twenty years’ experience across education, counselling and coaching - alongside her own lived experience navigating a complex separation and family court journey - she supports parents to think strategically, build capacity, and protect their children’s safety and wellbeing within complex legal and relational systems. Through Danielle Black Coaching, she leads a growing team of specialist coaches and a structured support ecosystem designed to provide professionally held, evidence-informed guidance for parents navigating high-conflict separation and family court processes. Learn more at danielleblackcoaching.com.au This podcast is for educational purposes only and not legal advice. Please seek independent legal, medical, financial, or mental health advice for your situation.

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  • August 12 · 45 min

    117. The Good Girl Contract - part five: The Contract after separation

    This is where the lens widens. Parts 1 through 4 focused on the Contract as it operates in the woman herself - her history, her patterns, her practice of interrupting it. Today, Danielle takes on the intergenerational dimension. Because the Contract does not stay contained to a woman's inner life. It is operating in her relationships right now, in her parenting arrangements, in the decisions she is making about and for her children - and in what her children are absorbing about who women are. Danielle walks through why the Contract persists after the relationship ends, and why post-separation life often intensifies its operation rather than resolving it. Because the overfunctioning that occurred during the relationship is continuing to play out - overfunctioning for the ex, the children, the lawyers, the report writer, the school, the extended family ... She then names one of the least-discussed dynamics in the post-separation space - pity-driven capitulation. Which is the pattern of primary care givers, well past the point of separation, agreeing to arrangements not because they are afraid of their ex, but because they feel sorry for them. Danielle also dives into what our children are watching, and what they are learning, about who women are from watching their mother in relation to their father. What they can absorb, at the level below conscious analysis, is that women are functions in the household and men are named specific people. Which is exactly what the Contract exists to teach the next generation - not through instruction, but through demonstration. Importantly, there is no scenario in which recognising a pattern too late is worse than not recognising it at all. The recognition itself is the beginning of the interruption. Which is exactly what our children need. Support: If you are in Australia and need to talk to someone, 1800RESPECT (1800 737 732) is available 24/7. In an emergency, call 000. Explore the supports offered by Danielle Black Coaching The Post-Separation Parenting Blueprint™ 👉 https://www.danielleblackcoaching.com.au/the-post-separation-parenting-blueprint-1 AI Danielle - Your 24/7 Digital Coach 👉 https://www.danielleblackcoaching.com.au/meet-ai-danielle 1:1 Coaching 👉 https://www.danielleblackcoaching.com.au/1-1-coaching Claim Your Name™: Burning the Good Girl Contract 👉 https://www.danielleblackcoaching.com.au/the-contract-you-never-agreed-to The music you hear in this outro is 'Calm is Credible' - an original track created exclusively for the Post-Separation Abuse Podcast and Danielle Black Coaching. You can listen to this song, or download free, by visiting danielleblackcoaching.com.au About Danielle Black Coaching: Danielle Black is a respected authority in child-focused post-separation parenting in Australia. With over twenty years’ experience across education, counselling and coaching - alongside her own lived experience navigating a complex separation and family court journey - she supports parents to think strategically, build capacity, and protect their children’s safety and wellbeing within complex legal and relational systems. Through Danielle Black Coaching, she leads a growing team of specialist coaches and a structured support ecosystem designed to provide professionally held, evidence-informed guidance for parents navigating high-conflict separation and family court processes. Learn more at danielleblackcoaching.com.au This podcast is for educational purposes only and not legal advice. Please seek independent legal, medical, financial, or mental health advice for your situation.

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  • August 9 · 1 hr 5 min

    116. The Good Girl Contract - part four: Interrupting the Contract

    Part 4 of The Good Girl Contract series. This is where the series pivots. Parts 1, 2, and 3 were diagnostic in nature - naming the Contract, walking through what happened when we took it into adult intimate relationships, and naming the mirror problem that comes from being trained not to hold our own boundaries, and not to receive other people’s. Today we talk about what interrupting the Contract actually looks like. Not in theory. Not from the other side. From inside it, using my own current life as the example. Danielle walks you through what maintaining a boundary can feel like in the body, and show up in life - the tightness in the chest, the urge to add paragraphs of explanation, the rehearsing of conversations hours after they ended. And she makes clear that holding a line is not the absence of discomfort. It is the presence of discomfort, plus the decision to hold anyway. Danielle shares the substantive reframe that changes what this whole series is for... The Contract’s purpose was never really to make us "good". That was the surface story. The mechanism underneath was different. The Contract’s purpose was to make us interchangeable - to sand off our specificity so we could slot into the same shape, the same function, as every other woman shaped by the same training. Which means the intervention this series is walking us toward is not to become "bad", or "rebellious", or "naughty". Those framings are still operating inside the Contract’s own moral vocabulary. The actual intervention is bigger. It is to be named. To become so specifically, unmistakably yourself that you cannot be substituted for another woman. And ultimately, Danielle would rather be one person’s shot of whiskey than everyone’s cup of tea. That is what this episode is about. Support: If you are in Australia and need to talk to someone, 1800RESPECT (1800 737 732) is available 24/7. In an emergency, call 000. Explore the supports offered by Danielle Black Coaching The Post-Separation Parenting Blueprint™ 👉 https://www.danielleblackcoaching.com.au/the-post-separation-parenting-blueprint-1 AI Danielle - Your 24/7 Digital Coach 👉 https://www.danielleblackcoaching.com.au/meet-ai-danielle 1:1 Coaching 👉 https://www.danielleblackcoaching.com.au/1-1-coaching Claim Your Name™: Burning the Good Girl Contract 👉 https://www.danielleblackcoaching.com.au/the-contract-you-never-agreed-to The music you hear in this outro is 'Calm is Credible' - an original track created exclusively for the Post-Separation Abuse Podcast and Danielle Black Coaching. You can listen to this song, or download free, by visiting danielleblackcoaching.com.au About Danielle Black Coaching: Danielle Black is a respected authority in child-focused post-separation parenting in Australia. With over twenty years’ experience across education, counselling and coaching - alongside her own lived experience navigating a complex separation and family court journey - she supports parents to think strategically, build capacity, and protect their children’s safety and wellbeing within complex legal and relational systems. Through Danielle Black Coaching, she leads a growing team of specialist coaches and a structured support ecosystem designed to provide professionally held, evidence-informed guidance for parents navigating high-conflict separation and family court processes. Learn more at danielleblackcoaching.com.au This podcast is for educational purposes only and not legal advice. Please seek independent legal, medical, financial, or mental health advice for your situation.

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  • July 30 · 39 min

    115. The good girl contract - part three: The mirror

    If you have been quietly noticing that you struggle to accept other people's boundaries with you - that their no’s, their unavailability, their limits land in you as evidence of your own worth rather than as data about their life - this episode is naming what that actually is. Part 3 of The Good Girl Contract starts with Danielle reflecting on a conversation from part one - the tropes in our favourite movies and novels - and then moves on to name 'the mirror problem', which is the observation that the same nervous system that cannot hold its own boundaries also cannot receive them. Not because women trained by the Contract are hypocritical or demanding or entitled. But rather because both are the same underlying pattern showing up in two directions - a nervous system that has been trained to read all social responses as data about her worth, and that cannot distinguish between someone else's limit or boundaries and someone else's rejection. Danielle walks through the specific mechanism, drawn from what she sees constantly in her coaching practice. The multiple-messages pattern - sending another message when the first one has not been answered in the timeframe you wanted, because the silence itself has become unbearable. Reading the boundaries of others as a personal statement about your importance or worth, or lack thereof, rather than as information about what's going on in their world. Replaying the words of a colleague who was abrupt with you in a meeting, wondering if the friend who has not texted back is upset with you, mentally cataloguing why your partner was quiet at dinner, stressing about why your child is quiet. All of which is the personalisation reflex. All of which is the specific cost of a nervous system trained to read other people's emotional states as evidence about you. This episode also opens a careful, respectful question about how the somatic imprint of the Contract can sometimes resemble or overlap with neurodivergence. Not as a challenge to anyone's diagnosis. As inquiry - because a growing number of women in this population are being diagnosed with ADHD or autism in adulthood, and some of what those diagnoses capture (hypervigilance, difficulty resting, cycles of overfunction and collapse, extraordinary capacity to read other people) is also what happens to a nervous system trained by early danger. Danielle names the two errors currently being made in the cultural moment - assuming trauma explains everything, or assuming a woman with a trauma history cannot also be genuinely neurodivergent - and holds the question open for listeners to work with in their own lives. The episode closes on the reframe: interrupting the personalisation reflex - the mirror problem - is not about becoming someone who doesn't care what other people think. It’s about becoming someone who can hold both truths at once - that other people's responses are information about them, and that you can still care about the connection that you have with them even when you don't make their boundaries mean something about you. A content note: this episode includes a careful, respectful question about how the somatic imprint of childhood trauma can sometimes resemble or overlap with neurodivergence. It is not a challenge to any listener's diagnosis. Support: If you are in Australia and need to talk to someone, 1800RESPECT (1800 737 732) is available 24/7. In an emergency, call 000. Explore the supports offered by Danielle Black Coaching The Post-Separation Parenting Blueprint™ 👉 https://www.danielleblackcoaching.com.au/the-post-separation-parenting-blueprint-1 AI Danielle - Your 24/7 Digital Coach 👉 https://www.danielleblackcoaching.com.au/meet-ai-danielle 1:1 Coaching 👉 https://www.danielleblackcoaching.com.au/1-1-coaching The music you hear in this outro is 'Calm is Credible' - an original track created exclusively for the Post-Separation Abuse Podcast and Danielle Black Coaching. You can listen to this song, or download free, by visiting danielleblackcoaching.com.au About Danielle Black Coaching: Danielle Black is a respected authority in child-focused post-separation parenting in Australia. With over twenty years’ experience across education, counselling and coaching - alongside her own lived experience navigating a complex separation and family court journey - she supports parents to think strategically, build capacity, and protect their children’s safety and wellbeing within complex legal and relational systems. Through Danielle Black Coaching, she leads a growing team of specialist coaches and a structured support ecosystem designed to provide professionally held, evidence-informed guidance for parents navigating high-conflict separation and family court processes. Learn more at danielleblackcoaching.com.au This podcast is for educational purposes only and not legal advice. Please seek independent legal, medical, financial, or mental health advice for your situation.

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  • July 23 · 38 min

    114. The good girl contract - part two: The moth and the flame

    Their woundedness was a moth to a flame to your overfunctioning. Part 2 of The Good Girl Contract walks through what happened when you took the Contract into your adult intimate relationships. Why the men who found you were not random. Why your nervous system recognised them as home. Why leaving felt so much harder than the surface story would suggest - and why so much of what has been sold to you as insight about your ex has been missing the more important insight about yourself. The episode opens with the reframe that partner selection was never a question of judgement or taste. It was a question of what your nervous system had been trained to recognise as familiar. From there, Danielle widens the wounded-man archetype into the family of related tropes that all activate the same Contract-shaped response - the emotionally unavailable man, the strong silent man, the man who has been hurt before, the man waiting for The One. Different clothing. Same job description for the woman. The episode also names something rare in the current recovery-content ecosystem.... That for a real period of time inside these relationships, the martyrdom feels good. Not just tolerable. Good. Danielle speaks openly about her own first marriage - working full-time, doing all the domestic labour, taking pride in having dinner fit for a king on the table every night, loving when he bragged about how well she looked after him. The shame that many survivors carry about how proud they were of the labour is one of the things keeping them stuck. Being always needed is not sustainable. Unreciprocated labour breeds resentment. Add male entitlement, add abuse, and the equation cannot balance. "What a perfect pairing. An entitled man, and a woman who needs to be needed. The Contract on one side. Its complement on the other. Neither of them chose it. Both of them delivered it. And the arrangement did exactly what the arrangement was structured to do." The episode also walks through the scientific mechanism that made leaving so hard - B.F. Skinner's work on variable-ratio reinforcement, and why the intermittent bones thrown occasionally are the mechanism, not incidental. Why the woman who stayed for years was not weak. She was in a reinforcement schedule the behavioural science tells us is one of the most persistent behavioural attachments a nervous system can form. And it closes on the destination glimpse - what healthy relationships actually feel like from the inside - less intensity, less drama, more consistency. Why they can initially feel wrong to a Contract-shaped nervous system. And the honest truth that receiving love from the other side is its own form of work, that takes years to build, and that the marvelling at ordinary daily love may never fully stop. This is a departure from the "narcissism-recovery" that has dominated survivor content in abundance. It refuses the "it wasn't you, it was all him" framing that keeps survivors as passive objects of someone else's pathology. It says instead: you brought something to this relationship. Not because you are to blame. Because you are the protagonist of your own story. And the protagonist is who gets to decide what happens next. A content note: this episode references patterns of unhealthy and abusive relationships at a diagnostic level. No graphic detail. Some listeners currently inside similar dynamics may want to listen with support available. The Post-Separation Parenting Blueprint is the structured way through this work. AI Danielle is available any time, any hour. Both at danielleblackcoaching.com.au. Support: If you are in Australia and need to talk to someone, 1800RESPECT (1800 737 732) is available 24/7. In an emergency, call 000. Explore the supports offered by Danielle Black Coaching The Post-Separation Parenting Blueprint™ 👉 https://www.danielleblackcoaching.com.au/the-post-separation-parenting-blueprint-1 AI Danielle - Your 24/7 Digital Coach 👉 https://www.danielleblackcoaching.com.au/meet-ai-danielle 1:1 Coaching 👉 https://www.danielleblackcoaching.com.au/1-1-coaching The music you hear in this outro is 'Calm is Credible' - an original track created exclusively for the Post-Separation Abuse Podcast and Danielle Black Coaching. You can listen to this song, or download free, by visiting danielleblackcoaching.com.au About Danielle Black Coaching: Danielle Black is a respected authority in child-focused post-separation parenting in Australia. With over twenty years’ experience across education, counselling and coaching - alongside her own lived experience navigating a complex separation and family court journey - she supports parents to think strategically, build capacity, and protect their children’s safety and wellbeing within complex legal and relational systems. Through Danielle Black Coaching, she leads a growing team of specialist coaches and a structured support ecosystem designed to provide professionally held, evidence-informed guidance for parents navigating high-conflict separation and family court processes. Learn more at danielleblackcoaching.com.au This podcast is for educational purposes only and not legal advice. Please seek independent legal, medical, financial, or mental health advice for your situation.

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  • July 16 · 25 min

    113. The good girl contract - part one: Where boundaries begin (or don't)

    When your childhood taught you that having needs was dangerous - that being pleasing, useful, and indispensable was the difference between love and its withdrawal - the reason boundaries are so hard as an adult is not that you are weak. It is that your nervous system learned exactly what it needed to learn to survive the environment you were in. Part 1 of The Good Girl Contract is the foundational episode of a new series. In this episode, Danielle speaks about childhood abuse. Physical and emotional abuse. Punishment for having emotions. Punishment for having needs. Punishment for answering back. The 1980s Australian cultural context in which corporal punishment of children was widespread and culturally sanctioned. From there, the episode widens into the frameworks that make the personal story into a universal one: • Stephen Porges' concept of neuroception - the body's continuous, unconscious scanning of the environment for cues of safety or threat - and what it does to a developing child in an environment where the source of care is also the source of danger. • The reframe that what the wellness and spiritual industries calls empathic sensitivity (or being an "empath") is, for a specific subset of women, more accurately understood as trained hypervigilance in a nervous system that learned very young that reading other people accurately was the difference between safety and danger. • Harriet Lerner's framework on overfunctioning in relationships and underfunctioning in self-advocacy. The distinction between cultural conditioning, which produced most women's struggle with boundaries, and violently enforced conditioning, which produced a more acute version. The episode lands on the naming of The Contract itself. A set of terms you did not consent to, do not remember signing, and have been operating under, in every relationship you have entered, ever since. "What was made can be remade. Because the same nervous system that learned the terms is capable of learning something else. Because the same brain that was shaped by danger can be reshaped by safety. Because the story is not over." This series is a departure from Working As Intended - from the structural argument about the family law system, to the personal architecture underneath the woman navigating it. A content note: this episode contains references to childhood experiences of physical and emotional abuse. No graphic detail. Some listeners may prefer to return to this episode when they have space for the material. The Post-Separation Parenting Blueprint is the structured way through this work - built for protective parents equipping themselves to interrupt the Contract in themselves, so their own children inherit something different. AI Danielle is available any time, any hour. Both at danielleblackcoaching.com.au Support: If you are in Australia and need to talk to someone, 1800RESPECT (1800 737 732) is available 24/7. In an emergency, call 000. Explore the supports offered by Danielle Black Coaching The Post-Separation Parenting Blueprint™ 👉 https://www.danielleblackcoaching.com.au/the-post-separation-parenting-blueprint-1 AI Danielle - Your 24/7 Digital Coach 👉 https://www.danielleblackcoaching.com.au/meet-ai-danielle 1:1 Coaching 👉 https://www.danielleblackcoaching.com.au/1-1-coaching The music you hear in this outro is 'Calm is Credible' - an original track created exclusively for the Post-Separation Abuse Podcast and Danielle Black Coaching. You can listen to this song, or download free, by visiting danielleblackcoaching.com.au About Danielle Black Coaching: Danielle Black is a respected authority in child-focused post-separation parenting in Australia. With over twenty years’ experience across education, counselling and coaching - alongside her own lived experience navigating a complex separation and family court journey - she supports parents to think strategically, build capacity, and protect their children’s safety and wellbeing within complex legal and relational systems. Through Danielle Black Coaching, she leads a growing team of specialist coaches and a structured support ecosystem designed to provide professionally held, evidence-informed guidance for parents navigating high-conflict separation and family court processes. Learn more at danielleblackcoaching.com.au This podcast is for educational purposes only and not legal advice. Please seek independent legal, medical, financial, or mental health advice for your situation.

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  • July 10 · 1 hr 3 min

    112. Working as intended (Postscript): Do I even need a lawyer? An honest conversation on self-representation

    If you have been listening to our Working As Intended series, and you have been quietly wondering "if lawyers were never trained in what my children need, and I have to bring all of that myself, do I even need a lawyer at all?" - this episode is the rest of the answer. Danielle opens with information that she hasn't shared on the podcast before - the fact that when she was dragged into the court system all those years ago, there was not a lot of money for lawyers. Her stepfather (the person who, in any other circumstances, would have been the ally every self-representing parent hopes to have) was a family law specialist for his entire forty-year career, but could not help her because he was living with an illness that was taking him rapidly from the family. This episode is what she has learned from being on both sides of the self-representation conversation ever since. The episode walks honestly through who actually self-represents in Australian family court, and why access to legal representation in this country is distributed by wealth in a way that should be a source of national shame. It names the category error at the heart of the entire current market - that understanding the legal process is not the same as understanding what to seek within it, and that what to seek is not a legal question at all. It walks through the four capacities self-representation actually requires - time, emotional, nervous system, and educational - most of which are invisible to the products currently being marketed and sold to people navigating separation and divorce. It names the specific trap of guns blazing self-representation, where the absence of a lawyer's tempering influence becomes exposure rather than freedom. And it lands the strategic middle position that most protective parents actually need to be in: "I have a lawyer, and I know how to use them - because I also have a coach." This is also the episode where Danielle positions the Post-Separation Parenting Blueprint directly. Not as a legal-navigation product. Rather, as the knowledge, capacity and advocacy layers that answer the questions that no legal-education product can answer - because it is not a legal question. And it is where she owns, clearly and unapologetically, why not being a lawyer is a strength of her work rather than a stumbling block. The Post-Separation Parenting Blueprint is the structured way through this work - built for protective parents equipping themselves with the substance the legal profession was never required to have. AI Danielle is available any time, any hour. Both at danielleblackcoaching.com.au Support: If you are in Australia and need to talk to someone, 1800RESPECT (1800 737 732) is available 24/7. In an emergency, call 000. Explore the supports offered by Danielle Black Coaching The Post-Separation Parenting Blueprint™ 👉 https://www.danielleblackcoaching.com.au/the-post-separation-parenting-blueprint-1 AI Danielle - Your 24/7 Digital Coach 👉 https://www.danielleblackcoaching.com.au/meet-ai-danielle 1:1 Coaching 👉 https://www.danielleblackcoaching.com.au/1-1-coaching The music you hear in this outro is 'Calm is Credible' - an original track created exclusively for the Post-Separation Abuse Podcast and Danielle Black Coaching. You can listen to this song, or download free, by visiting danielleblackcoaching.com.au About Danielle Black Coaching: Danielle Black is a respected authority in child-focused post-separation parenting in Australia. With over twenty years’ experience across education, counselling and coaching - alongside her own lived experience navigating a complex separation and family court journey - she supports parents to think strategically, build capacity, and protect their children’s safety and wellbeing within complex legal and relational systems. Through Danielle Black Coaching, she leads a growing team of specialist coaches and a structured support ecosystem designed to provide professionally held, evidence-informed guidance for parents navigating high-conflict separation and family court processes. Learn more at danielleblackcoaching.com.au This podcast is for educational purposes only and not legal advice. Please seek independent legal, medical, financial, or mental health advice for your situation.

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  • July 2 · 36 min

    111. Working as intended - Part 4: How to use your lawyer

    If you've been with Danielle across this series, you now know how the family law system in Australia was built, what its practitioners were and were not trained to know, and how to test whether anyone in the post-separation space is genuinely child-focused. This final episode of Working As Intended brings the arc to ground. You still need a lawyer. You still have to work with these professionals. You can't opt out of the system entirely. So what do you actually do with everything you now know? Part 4 answers that question. Specifically: how to use a lawyer for the things they're genuinely expert in, without deferring to them on the questions they were never trained to answer. The episode names something Danielle has observed and experienced across almost two decades of navigating the system and the post-separation space: many clients of hers who have sought sole parental responsibility - informed, prepared, and willing to hold firm - have been successful. This episode explains why the gap between "my lawyer told me it's very hard to get" and "my clients get it" is not a gap in the law, especially now that the 2024 amendments have actually moved the law in favour of genuinely child-focused reasoning. It is a gap in what the lawyer does not know how to do, and a gap in what the parent brings to the process. Both are closable. One is only closable by you. Danielle also names the feedback loop that keeps the system stuck - the way lawyers' outcome predictions become self-fulfilling when clients defer to them, and the way individual informed parents holding firm slowly reshape what lawyers tell the next parent who sits across from them. Your case is not just your case. When you hold firm, when you bring the knowledge, when you achieve the outcome the developmental science supports and the lawyer said was hard to get, you become a data point. A small, specific contribution to the evidence base that eventually shifts what lawyers tell the next parent. The system was not built to see your children. You were. And in a system that has never been required to prioritise what children need, a parent who arrives knowing exactly what their children need, and why, and how to demonstrate it, is a genuinely powerful force. The Post-Separation Parenting Blueprint is the structured way through this work. Module 17 covers coercive control. Module 19 covers parental alienation. Module 16 is the capacity work. The whole of the Blueprint is built for exactly what this series has been describing - equipping protective parents to bring into the room the knowledge the system never required its practitioners to have. AI Danielle is available any time, any hour. Both at danielleblackcoaching.com.au. Support: If you are in Australia and need to talk to someone, 1800RESPECT (1800 737 732) is available 24/7. In an emergency, call 000. Explore the supports offered by Danielle Black Coaching The Post-Separation Parenting Blueprint™ 👉 https://www.danielleblackcoaching.com.au/the-post-separation-parenting-blueprint-1 AI Danielle - Your 24/7 Digital Coach 👉 https://www.danielleblackcoaching.com.au/meet-ai-danielle 1:1 Coaching 👉 https://www.danielleblackcoaching.com.au/1-1-coaching The music you hear in this outro is 'Calm is Credible' - an original track created exclusively for the Post-Separation Abuse Podcast and Danielle Black Coaching. You can listen to this song, or download free, by visiting danielleblackcoaching.com.au About Danielle Black Coaching: Danielle Black is a respected authority in child-focused post-separation parenting in Australia. With over twenty years’ experience across education, counselling and coaching - alongside her own lived experience navigating a complex separation and family court journey - she supports parents to think strategically, build capacity, and protect their children’s safety and wellbeing within complex legal and relational systems. Through Danielle Black Coaching, she leads a growing team of specialist coaches and a structured support ecosystem designed to provide professionally held, evidence-informed guidance for parents navigating high-conflict separation and family court processes. Learn more at danielleblackcoaching.com.au This podcast is for educational purposes only and not legal advice. Please seek independent legal, medical, financial, or mental health advice for your situation.

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  • June 24 · 46 min

    110. Working as intended - Part 3: The standard - How to tell who actually knows what your children need

    "Child-focused." Two words that appear on the website of virtually every practitioner in the post-separation space. Every lawyer. Every mediator. Every divorce coach. Every family therapist. Every family report writer. The language is everywhere - and in part 3 of Working As Intended, Danielle walks you through how to tell, in thirty seconds, whether the person using those two words actually has the knowledge they're claiming. This episode widens the lens beyond the legal profession to the entire industry that has built itself around post-separation parenting. It opens on a family doctor advising a mother with serious safety concerns about her ex's capacity to care for their two-year-old to "give him a chance, how else is he going to learn." From there, the episode walks profession by profession - coaching, mediation, post-separation parenting programs, parenting orders programs, family therapy, the professional development circuit - naming what the credential actually requires and what it does not. The episode also introduces an argument Danielle hasn't made publicly before: that family report writers are the load-bearing role for the entire family law system's claim to be child-focused. Every other professional in the system who has not been required to study child development has, in effect, outsourced that requirement to the report writer. If the report writer doesn't have the knowledge either - and there is no uniform requirement that they do - the system has no foundation under any of its claims about children's best interests. A specific anonymised case example - a play therapist identifying a trauma response, a family report writer reading the same presentation as grief - lands the cost in concrete terms. The episode closes with the one question to ask every practitioner in this space, the test that takes thirty seconds and tells you almost everything you need to know about whether you are going to trust them with your children's story. A dedicated standalone episode on family report writers will follow the conclusion of the Working As Intended series. The Post-Separation Parenting Blueprint is the structured way through this work - built for protective parents bringing the knowledge the system never required its practitioners to have. AI Danielle is available any time, any hour. Both at danielleblackcoaching.com.au Support: If you are in Australia and need to talk to someone, 1800RESPECT (1800 737 732) is available 24/7. In an emergency, call 000. Explore the supports offered by Danielle Black Coaching The Post-Separation Parenting Blueprint™ 👉 https://www.danielleblackcoaching.com.au/the-post-separation-parenting-blueprint-1 AI Danielle - Your 24/7 Digital Coach 👉 https://www.danielleblackcoaching.com.au/meet-ai-danielle 1:1 Coaching 👉 https://www.danielleblackcoaching.com.au/1-1-coaching The music you hear in this outro is 'Calm is Credible' - an original track created exclusively for the Post-Separation Abuse Podcast and Danielle Black Coaching. You can listen to this song, or download free, by visiting danielleblackcoaching.com.au The music you hear in this outro is 'Calm is Credible' - an original track created exclusively for the Post-Separation Abuse Podcast and Danielle Black Coaching. You can listen to this song, or download free, by visiting danielleblackcoaching.com.au About Danielle Black Coaching: Danielle Black is a respected authority in child-focused post-separation parenting in Australia. With over twenty years’ experience across education, counselling and coaching - alongside her own lived experience navigating a complex separation and family court journey - she supports parents to think strategically, build capacity, and protect their children’s safety and wellbeing within complex legal and relational systems. Through Danielle Black Coaching, she leads a growing team of specialist coaches and a structured support ecosystem designed to provide professionally held, evidence-informed guidance for parents navigating high-conflict separation and family court processes. Learn more at danielleblackcoaching.com.au This podcast is for educational purposes only and not legal advice. Please seek independent legal, medical, financial, or mental health advice for your situation.

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  • June 17 · 29 min

    109. Working as intended - Part 2: What an Independent Children's Lawyer (ICL) actually is

    Nine hundred and fifty dollars. An online module and a one-day workshop. That's the specialist training that qualifies a family lawyer to represent your child's best interests in court - and that's the starting point for part 2 of Working As Intended. In this episode, Danielle walks through the structural reality of Independent Children's Lawyer accreditation in Australia, including the Australian Institute of Family Studies finding that there are no uniform professional development requirements for ICLs across jurisdictions. From there, the episode pivots into an argument you won't hear in most family law commentary - that the pre-1975 system, however sexist in its assumptions, was accidentally more aligned with what attachment science would later confirm than the reformed system that replaced it. And what the 2006 transactional lens cost children. If you've ever wondered why the person appointed to represent your children's "best interests" appears unfamiliar with what those best interests actually require - this is the longer answer. The episode opens with a brief clarification refining two specific points from part 1. The Post-Separation Parenting Blueprint is the structured way through this work - built for protective parents equipping themselves to advocate for their children with the knowledge the system never required its practitioners to have. AI Danielle is available any time, any hour. Both at danielleblackcoaching.com.au. Support: If you are in Australia and need to talk to someone, 1800RESPECT (1800 737 732) is available 24/7. In an emergency, call 000. Explore the supports offered by Danielle Black Coaching The Post-Separation Parenting Blueprint™ 👉 https://www.danielleblackcoaching.com.au/the-post-separation-parenting-blueprint-1 AI Danielle - Your 24/7 Digital Coach 👉 https://www.danielleblackcoaching.com.au/meet-ai-danielle 1:1 Coaching 👉 https://www.danielleblackcoaching.com.au/1-1-coaching The music you hear in this outro is 'Calm is Credible' - an original track created exclusively for the Post-Separation Abuse Podcast and Danielle Black Coaching. You can listen to this song, or download free, by visiting danielleblackcoaching.com.au About Danielle Black Coaching: Danielle Black is a respected authority in child-focused post-separation parenting in Australia. With over twenty years’ experience across education, counselling and coaching - alongside her own lived experience navigating a complex separation and family court journey - she supports parents to think strategically, build capacity, and protect their children’s safety and wellbeing within complex legal and relational systems. Through Danielle Black Coaching, she leads a growing team of specialist coaches and a structured support ecosystem designed to provide professionally held, evidence-informed guidance for parents navigating high-conflict separation and family court processes. Learn more at danielleblackcoaching.com.au This podcast is for educational purposes only and not legal advice. Please seek independent legal, medical, financial, or mental health advice for your situation.

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  • June 10 · 30 min

    108. Working as intended - Part 1: What your lawyer was taught (and what they weren't)

    What your family lawyer was taught - and what they weren't. The first of four episodes on the architecture of the Australian family law system. Eleven mandatory areas of study to be admitted as a lawyer in Australia. Family law isn't one of them. The system isn't rigged. It isn't broken. It's working exactly as it was designed to - and the problem is what it was designed for. This is the first of a four-part series on the architecture of the Australian family law system. The system was built to adjudicate disputes between adult parties - to resolve property, allocate parenting time, and produce court orders. It was not built, in its foundations, to see children. And when we ask that architecture to do something it was never built to do, it produces, predictably, the outcomes we often see - children ordered into arrangements that are at best inappropriate, and at worst doing serious and lasting harm that could be prevented. In this first episode, I look at one of those foundations: how the lawyers inside the system were trained. There are eleven mandatory areas of study required to be admitted as a lawyer in Australia - known as the Priestley 11. None of them is family law. None of them is coercive control. None of them is child development. None of them is trauma. None of them is post-separation abuse. A specialisation that, for most family lawyers, rests on a single elective subject - if it was taken at all - and on whatever they "pick up on the job". This is the foundation. And it is producing, predictably, what foundations like this produce. In this episode: The focus: the system is working as designed; the problem is what it was designed for The Priestley 11 - the eleven mandatory areas of study to become an Australian lawyer, none of which is family law Why this is a structural argument, not an attack on individual family lawyers And, in the closing minutes - what practising family lawyers themselves say about the training gap, in their own words For protective parents navigating this system, the work I do in the Blueprint is built for exactly this - becoming the expert in your own situation, because, as this episode shows, the people advising you may not be. It's there if and when you want to go deeper. Coming next: what an Independent Children's Lawyer (ICL) actually is, and what an ICL was actually trained to do. Support: If you are in Australia and need to talk to someone, 1800RESPECT (1800 737 732) is available 24/7. In an emergency, call 000. Explore the supports offered by Danielle Black Coaching The Post-Separation Parenting Blueprint™ 👉 https://www.danielleblackcoaching.com.au/the-post-separation-parenting-blueprint-1 AI Danielle - Your 24/7 Digital Coach 👉 https://www.danielleblackcoaching.com.au/meet-ai-danielle 1:1 Coaching 👉 https://www.danielleblackcoaching.com.au/1-1-coaching The music you hear in this outro is 'Calm is Credible' - an original track created exclusively for the Post-Separation Abuse Podcast and Danielle Black Coaching. You can listen to this song, or download free, by visiting danielleblackcoaching.com.au About Danielle Black Coaching: Danielle Black is a respected authority in child-focused post-separation parenting in Australia. With over twenty years’ experience across education, counselling and coaching - alongside her own lived experience navigating a complex separation and family court journey - she supports parents to think strategically, build capacity, and protect their children’s safety and wellbeing within complex legal and relational systems. Through Danielle Black Coaching, she leads a growing team of specialist coaches and a structured support ecosystem designed to provide professionally held, evidence-informed guidance for parents navigating high-conflict separation and family court processes. Learn more at danielleblackcoaching.com.au This podcast is for educational purposes only and not legal advice. Please seek independent legal, medical, financial, or mental health advice for your situation.

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  • June 4 · 1 hr 1 min

    107. When 'parental alienation' is actually coercive control

    "Parental alienation" is one of the most weaponised terms in family law. In this episode, Danielle Black takes the term apart, puts something more precise in its place - and explains why the protective parents on the receiving end of those accusations are almost never the ones doing the harm. Your child loves you. They may simply not feel safe to love you. This is the reframe I want every protective parent who has watched their child pull away to carry, because it changes everything. "Parental alienation" is one of the most weaponised terms in family law. It is invoked, again and again, by parents accused of abuse to discredit the parent who has tried to protect their children from them. It is also gestured at to name a phenomenon that is genuinely real: one parent deliberately damaging a child's relationship with the other. The same term carries two very different things, and that ambiguity is precisely what makes it so easy to weaponise. In this episode I take the term apart, and put something more precise in its place - drawing on the work of Dr Emma Katz, the current Australian legal framework, and what I have learned from years of working with protective parents through exactly this. I address gender carefully, because the statistical pattern matters, and it is not the whole picture. And I offer two things to anyone living through any version of this: a framework for staying in your own lane when you are the one being accused, and a way of thinking about recovery and connection if your relationship with your child has been damaged. This episode follows episode 105. Coercive Control: What It Is, and What It Isn't. If you haven't heard that one, I'd recommend listening to it first as it sets the foundation this conversation builds on. In this episode: Why "parental alienation" survives despite being scientifically discredited - and how it functions as a coercive control tactic in its own right Dr Emma Katz's reframe: parent-child relationship sabotage, and Child and Mother Sabotage (CAMS) A note on gender and direction - most often, but not only What the current Australian family law landscape (post-2023) actually says, and how it differs sharply from the United States Staying in your own lane: a framework for responding to accusations from a grounded, protective place Recovery and connection when your relationship with your child has been damaged: presence over pressure, autonomy over fixing If what I've described is your life - whether you're facing these allegations or living through the sabotage itself - the full version of everything I've worked through here lives in the Blueprint: Module 19 for this, and Module 17 for the coercive control underneath it. It's there if and when you want to go deeper. Support: If you are in Australia and need to talk to someone, 1800RESPECT (1800 737 732) is available 24/7. In an emergency, call 000. Explore the supports offered by Danielle Black Coaching The Post-Separation Parenting Blueprint™ 👉 https://www.danielleblackcoaching.com.au/the-post-separation-parenting-blueprint-1 AI Danielle - Your 24/7 Digital Coach 👉 https://www.danielleblackcoaching.com.au/meet-ai-danielle 1:1 Coaching 👉 https://www.danielleblackcoaching.com.au/1-1-coaching The music you hear in this outro is 'Calm is Credible' - an original track created exclusively for the Post-Separation Abuse Podcast and Danielle Black Coaching. You can listen to this song, or download free, by visiting danielleblackcoaching.com.au The music you hear in this outro is 'Calm is Credible' - an original track created exclusively for the Post-Separation Abuse Podcast and Danielle Black Coaching. You can listen to this song, or download free, by visiting danielleblackcoaching.com.au About Danielle Black Coaching: Danielle Black is a respected authority in child-focused post-separation parenting in Australia. With over twenty years’ experience across education, counselling and coaching - alongside her own lived experience navigating a complex separation and family court journey - she supports parents to think strategically, build capacity, and protect their children’s safety and wellbeing within complex legal and relational systems. Through Danielle Black Coaching, she leads a growing team of specialist coaches and a structured support ecosystem designed to provide professionally held, evidence-informed guidance for parents navigating high-conflict separation and family court processes. Learn more at danielleblackcoaching.com.au This podcast is for educational purposes only and not legal advice. Please seek independent legal, medical, financial, or mental health advice for your situation.

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  • May 27 · 31 min

    106. Coercive control - What it is, and what it isn't

    "Coercive control" has entered the mainstream - and started to lose its precision. This episode brings it back: what coercive control actually is, what it isn't, and why the difference matters for everyone. "I felt trapped in my own life." It's a phrase I hear again and again from clients, it's how I felt all those years ago, and it captures something the technical definitions can't quite reach. In recent years, "coercive control" has moved from the margins into legislation, headlines, and dinner-table conversation. That shift is profound and overdue. But as the term has become more widely used, it has also become more loosely used - and when everything is called coercive control, the word begins to lose the meaning that the people who have genuinely lived it depend on. If everything is coercive control, then nothing is. In this episode I bring the precision back. I walk through what coercive control actually is - a deliberate, sustained pattern of behaviour designed to dominate another person and strip away their autonomy, producing fear and compliance - and some of the tactics that make it up. Then I draw the harder lines: how being "controlling" is not the same as coercive control, and how to think clearly about the trickier middle ground, including withholding contact with children, post-separation behaviour, and reactive behaviours. I also address who perpetrates coercive control: a framework that is gender-neutral in principle, alongside a statistical reality that is anything but - held in a way that erases neither women's overwhelmingly documented experience nor male victims. This is a measured conversation, on purpose. The precision I'm arguing for is exactly what the people whose lives were shaped by coercive control deserve. In this episode: What coercive control actually is - pattern, intent, domination, fear, compliance and loss of autonomy The tactics that constitute it Why "controlling" behaviour is not the same as coercive control The trickier middle ground: withholding contact, post-separation behaviour, and reactive abuse Who perpetrates coercive control - the framework, and the statistics Three questions to ask yourself if you're unsure Where to find support, and where to understand this in depth If this episode gives you language for something you have been living, the work continues in the Blueprint - Module 17 in particular is the extended treatment of coercive control, the foundation the rest of it is built on. Support: If you are in Australia and need to talk to someone, 1800RESPECT (1800 737 732) is available 24/7. In an emergency, call 000. Explore the supports offered by Danielle Black Coaching The Post-Separation Parenting Blueprint™ 👉 https://www.danielleblackcoaching.com.au/the-post-separation-parenting-blueprint-1 AI Danielle - Your 24/7 Digital Coach 👉 https://www.danielleblackcoaching.com.au/meet-ai-danielle 1:1 Coaching 👉 https://www.danielleblackcoaching.com.au/1-1-coaching The music you hear in this outro is 'Calm is Credible' - an original track created exclusively for the Post-Separation Abuse Podcast and Danielle Black Coaching. You can listen to this song, or download free, by visiting danielleblackcoaching.com.au About Danielle Black Coaching: Danielle Black is a respected authority in child-focused post-separation parenting in Australia. With over twenty years’ experience across education, counselling and coaching - alongside her own lived experience navigating a complex separation and family court journey - she supports parents to think strategically, build capacity, and protect their children’s safety and wellbeing within complex legal and relational systems. Through Danielle Black Coaching, she leads a growing team of specialist coaches and a structured support ecosystem designed to provide professionally held, evidence-informed guidance for parents navigating high-conflict separation and family court processes. Learn more at danielleblackcoaching.com.au This podcast is for educational purposes only and not legal advice. Please seek independent legal, medical, financial, or mental health advice for your situation.

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  • May 20 · 27 min

    105. The 5 critical mistakes that parents make in early separation

    The decisions you make in the early stages of separation can shape your family for years to come. And yet, most parents make critical mistakes during this most vulnerable time - often because they're following well-meaning but misguided advice from friends, family, or even professionals who don't understand child development or the realities of post-separation parenting. In this episode, Danielle walks through the five most damaging mistakes she sees parents make repeatedly in early separation: • Avoiding conflict at all costs • Believing "50/50 is best" • Believing you need the non-primary parent's agreement for everything • Making permanent decisions based on temporary emotions • Accepting generic advice for your situation Each mistake comes with its own version of harm. Each is avoidable when you understand what your children actually need from this transition, and how to advocate for it. This episode was originally recorded as private content for those on the Post-Separation Parenting Blueprint™ waitlist in mid 2025. It is being released publicly because the conversation it opens is one every separating parent deserves to hear early - not after the patterns have set, not after the precedents have been established, but at the moment when getting it right matters most. If you're navigating the early stages of separation, or supporting someone who is, this is the episode to start with. The Post-Separation Parenting Blueprint™ is the comprehensive course that takes you the rest of the way. Explore the supports offered by Danielle Black Coaching The Post-Separation Parenting Blueprint™ 👉 https://www.danielleblackcoaching.com.au/the-post-separation-parenting-blueprint-1 AI Danielle - Your 24/7 Digital Coach 👉 https://www.danielleblackcoaching.com.au/meet-ai-danielle 1:1 Coaching 👉 https://www.danielleblackcoaching.com.au/1-1-coaching The music you hear in this outro is 'Calm is Credible' - an original track created exclusively for the Post-Separation Abuse Podcast and Danielle Black Coaching. You can listen to this song, or download free, by visiting danielleblackcoaching.com.au About Danielle Black Coaching: Danielle Black is a respected authority in child-focused post-separation parenting in Australia. With over twenty years’ experience across education, counselling and coaching - alongside her own lived experience navigating a complex separation and family court journey - she supports parents to think strategically, build capacity, and protect their children’s safety and wellbeing within complex legal and relational systems. Through Danielle Black Coaching, she leads a growing team of specialist coaches and a structured support ecosystem designed to provide professionally held, evidence-informed guidance for parents navigating high-conflict separation and family court processes. Learn more at danielleblackcoaching.com.au This podcast is for educational purposes only and not legal advice. Please seek independent legal, medical, financial, or mental health advice for your situation.

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  • May 13 · 35 min

    104. If their name was Brian: family violence in lesbian relationships

    There is a phrase I have heard, in various forms, from many of my clients over the years: "If her name was Brian instead of Barb, the recognition and response would have been completely different." That phrase is the whole problem, distilled into one sentence. This solo episode is for two audiences at once. The first is every woman who has experienced family violence or post-separation abuse perpetrated by a female partner - and who has watched as professionals, police, and even community bystanders failed to recognise what was being done to her. If that is you, I want you to know I see what happened. The pattern is real. The response was inadequate. And it was not because your experience didn't matter - it was because the system we have built to recognise family violence is built on a gendered template, and when neither party fits that template, the template fails. The second is the post-separation professionals - lawyers, mediators, family report writers, Independent Children's Lawyers, police - who handle these cases without realising how much they are missing. The bias is correctable and this episode is a direct invitation to do better. In this episode I unpack what the research actually shows about intimate partner violence in lesbian relationships, why minimisation happens so consistently across professional and community contexts, the specific dynamics of stalking and coercive control when both parties are women, and what naming abuse honestly does - and does not - mean for the broader LGBTQIA+ community. Content note: This episode discusses family violence, post-separation abuse, coercive control, and stalking, including the specific ways these are minimised in lesbian relationships. If you need support: 1800RESPECT 1800 737 732 (24/7 family violence and sexual assault support, available across Australia) | QLife 1800 184 527 (LGBTQI+ peer support). Explore the supports offered by Danielle Black Coaching The Post-Separation Parenting Blueprint™ 👉 https://www.danielleblackcoaching.com.au/the-post-separation-parenting-blueprint-1 AI Danielle - Your 24/7 Digital Coach 👉 https://www.danielleblackcoaching.com.au/meet-ai-danielle 1:1 Coaching 👉 https://www.danielleblackcoaching.com.au/1-1-coaching The music you hear in this outro is 'Calm is Credible' - an original track created exclusively for the Post-Separation Abuse Podcast and Danielle Black Coaching. You can listen to this song, or download free, by visiting danielleblackcoaching.com.au About Danielle Black Coaching: Danielle Black is a respected authority in child-focused post-separation parenting in Australia. With over twenty years’ experience across education, counselling and coaching - alongside her own lived experience navigating a complex separation and family court journey - she supports parents to think strategically, build capacity, and protect their children’s safety and wellbeing within complex legal and relational systems. Through Danielle Black Coaching, she leads a growing team of specialist coaches and a structured support ecosystem designed to provide professionally held, evidence-informed guidance for parents navigating high-conflict separation and family court processes. Learn more at danielleblackcoaching.com.au This podcast is for educational purposes only and not legal advice. Please seek independent legal, medical, financial, or mental health advice for your situation.

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  • May 7 · 52 min

    103. What Mother's Day actually looks like when you're navigating post-separation abuse - and what to do with it

    This Mother's Day episode is for every mother who knows the day might be complicated. For the mothers without orders, whose former partners simply deny contact on Mother's Day. For the mothers who get a few hours - children dropped in the morning, collected later that same day, no unhurried time for the burnt toast or the homemade card. For the mothers whose former partners will withhold the children; yet again prioritising themselves and their own desire for revenge over the needs and rights of their children. For the mothers whose children are refusing to spend time with them, and who carry that grief privately. For every mother who is going to perform "fine" on Sunday because there are children watching. And we haven't even touched on those of us who have complicated relationships with our own mothers... I share something I haven't shared publicly on this podcast before, and I talk about the landscape of Mother's Day for separated mothers still navigating post-separation abuse. This episode also introduces the four private audio channels available exclusively to Post-Separation Parenting Blueprint™ members: Blueprint Radio, Calm & Grounded Audio Collection, the Stronger Braver Together album, and the Blueprint Audio Library (rolling out from late May 2026). Content note: This episode discusses the experience of mothers separated from their children on Mother's Day, including through family court proceedings and post-separation abuse. It contains personal disclosure. Please take care of yourself as you listen. If you need support: Lifeline 13 11 14 | 1800RESPECT 1800 737 732 | Both available 24/7 across Australia. Explore the supports offered by Danielle Black Coaching The Post-Separation Parenting Blueprint™ 👉 https://www.danielleblackcoaching.com.au/the-post-separation-parenting-blueprint-1 AI Danielle - Your 24/7 Digital Coach 👉 https://www.danielleblackcoaching.com.au/meet-ai-danielle 1:1 Coaching 👉 https://www.danielleblackcoaching.com.au/1-1-coaching The music you hear in this outro is 'Calm is Credible' - an original track created exclusively for the Post-Separation Abuse Podcast and Danielle Black Coaching. You can listen to this song, or download free, by visiting danielleblackcoaching.com.au About Danielle Black Coaching: Danielle Black is a respected authority in child-focused post-separation parenting in Australia. With over twenty years’ experience across education, counselling and coaching - alongside her own lived experience navigating a complex separation and family court journey - she supports parents to think strategically, build capacity, and protect their children’s safety and wellbeing within complex legal and relational systems. Through Danielle Black Coaching, she leads a growing team of specialist coaches and a structured support ecosystem designed to provide professionally held, evidence-informed guidance for parents navigating high-conflict separation and family court processes. Learn more at danielleblackcoaching.com.au This podcast is for educational purposes only and not legal advice. Please seek independent legal, medical, financial, or mental health advice for your situation.

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  • April 29 · 57 min

    102. Everyone has a biggest problem - Why your pain is valid, why staying stuck is a choice, and what it costs both you and your children

    In this episode, Danielle unpacks something that comes up constantly in her work with clients: the tendency to invalidate our own pain by comparing it to someone else's. To stay in situations that are harmful - not because we can't leave, but because leaving feels harder than staying. To choose the familiar difficulty, the 'comfortable discomfort', over the unfamiliar one, without ever consciously naming it as a choice. Because here is the truth: everything is hard. Staying is hard. Leaving is hard. Fighting for your children is hard. Giving up is hard. The question is never whether something is hard. The question is which hard you are choosing - and whether that choice is actually serving your children. In this episode Danielle covers: Why "someone always has it worse" is both true and completely irrelevant to your situation The conflict avoidance trap - why staying stuck can feel safer than moving forward, and what that safety is actually costing you The "choose your biggest problem" framework - and why naming your choices changes everything The difference between feeling your feelings and living inside them indefinitely This episode also contains a moment of personal honesty from Danielle about her own experience of suicidal ideation during the hardest period of her post-separation journey - and why she is sharing it. If you have been feeling like your situation isn't bad enough to justify the way you feel, or if you have been waiting for things to get bad enough before you act, this episode is for you. As always, this episode is not legal advice and not therapy. If you are experiencing thoughts of suicide or self-harm, please seek support. • Lifeline: 13 11 14 • 1800RESPECT: 1800 737 732. Explore the supports offered by Danielle Black Coaching The Post-Separation Parenting Blueprint™ 👉 https://www.danielleblackcoaching.com.au/the-post-separation-parenting-blueprint-1 AI Danielle - Your 24/7 Digital Coach 👉 https://www.danielleblackcoaching.com.au/meet-ai-danielle 1:1 Coaching 👉 https://www.danielleblackcoaching.com.au/1-1-coaching The music you hear in this outro is 'Calm is Credible' - an original track created exclusively for the Post-Separation Abuse Podcast and Danielle Black Coaching. You can listen to this song, or download free, by visiting danielleblackcoaching.com.au About Danielle Black Coaching: Danielle Black is a respected authority in child-focused post-separation parenting in Australia. With over twenty years’ experience across education, counselling and coaching - alongside her own lived experience navigating a complex separation and family court journey - she supports parents to think strategically, build capacity, and protect their children’s safety and wellbeing within complex legal and relational systems. Through Danielle Black Coaching, she leads a growing team of specialist coaches and a structured support ecosystem designed to provide professionally held, evidence-informed guidance for parents navigating high-conflict separation and family court processes. Learn more at danielleblackcoaching.com.au This podcast is for educational purposes only and not legal advice. Please seek independent legal, medical, financial, or mental health advice for your situation.

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  • April 22 · 36 min

    101. AI tools for protective parents: Claude.ai, ChatGPT and AI Danielle - the 24/7 digital coach inside the Blueprint

    What if you had access to a specialist coaching resource trained in coercive control, the Australian family law system, attachment science, and nervous system regulation - any time of day or night, at no additional cost? In this episode, Danielle Black introduces AI Danielle - the digital coaching resource built for the Post-Separation Parenting Blueprint™ - and does something she's never done before on this podcast: has a live, unscripted conversation with her on air. This is not a demo. This is a real interaction - Danielle asking questions, AI Danielle responding in real time. You'll hear how she handles the question of her own limitations, how she responds to a real scenario a protective parent might bring, and what it actually feels like to interact with a resource that understands your specific context. In this episode: Why Danielle was sceptical about AI - and what changed What AI Danielle actually is, and what she isn't How she differs from general AI tools like Claude.ai and ChatGPT The live conversation: Danielle and AI Danielle in real time What AI Danielle can do for you at 3am before a family report interview Module 22 of the Blueprint: AI in Your Corner - including the one-of-a-kind affidavit preparation resource Blueprint members and those working with Danielle Black Coaching via a coaching package have unlimited access to AI Danielle - any time, any question, no additional cost. For everyone else, she's available free on the website with limited messaging. If you've been curious about AI tools for your post-separation journey - or if you've tried general AI and found it doesn't understand your context - this episode will change how you think about what's possible. As always, this episode is not legal advice and not therapy. Explore the supports offered by Danielle Black Coaching The Post-Separation Parenting Blueprint™ 👉 https://www.danielleblackcoaching.com.au/the-post-separation-parenting-blueprint-1 AI Danielle - Your 24/7 Digital Coach 👉 https://www.danielleblackcoaching.com.au/meet-ai-danielle 1:1 Coaching 👉 https://www.danielleblackcoaching.com.au/1-1-coaching The music you hear in this outro is 'Calm is Credible' - an original track created exclusively for the Post-Separation Abuse Podcast and Danielle Black Coaching. You can listen to this song, or download free, by visiting danielleblackcoaching.com.au About Danielle Black Coaching: Danielle Black is a respected authority in child-focused post-separation parenting in Australia. With over twenty years’ experience across education, counselling and coaching - alongside her own lived experience navigating a complex separation and family court journey - she supports parents to think strategically, build capacity, and protect their children’s safety and wellbeing within complex legal and relational systems. Through Danielle Black Coaching, she leads a growing team of specialist coaches and a structured support ecosystem designed to provide professionally held, evidence-informed guidance for parents navigating high-conflict separation and family court processes. Learn more at danielleblackcoaching.com.au This podcast is for educational purposes only and not legal advice. Please seek independent legal, medical, financial, or mental health advice for your situation.

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  • April 16 · 34 min

    100. The game is the same - 17 Years, 100 Episodes, and the debut of 'Stronger, Braver, Together'

    One hundred episodes. In this milestone episode, Danielle Black does something she has never quite done before - she tells the full truth about where this work came from, what it has cost, and why she hasn't walked away. More than seventeen years ago, Danielle was a young mother with a 12-month-old son. She was told by a family lawyer to agree to the 50/50 care arrangements that her abusive ex was demanding. She developed C-PTSD. She kept her phone on silent for a decade because the sound of a message arriving triggered a full panic response. And through all of it, she performed 'reasonableness' - because that was what the professionals, and the system, rewarded. This episode is honest about what has changed in the Australian family law system since then. And equally honest about what hasn't. In this episode Danielle covers: What the family law system was like 17 years ago - and what it looks like now Why legislative change and practice change are not the same thing The invisible architecture of what Danielle has built - and why boundaries are not a failure of dedication Why she didn't burn it down when she wanted to A direct message to the parent who is where she was seventeen years ago This is not a highlight reel. It is a reckoning - and a declaration. This episode also marks the debut of Stronger, Braver, Together - the second original anthem created exclusively for the Post-Separation Abuse Podcast and Danielle Black Coaching. Written for every parent who has carried more than they should, who has learned to move with clarity rather than chaos, and who is choosing to build rather than burn - this song closes Episode 100 as it should be closed. Not with noise, but with quiet strength. As always, this episode is not legal advice and not therapy. Explore the supports offered by Danielle Black Coaching The Post-Separation Parenting Blueprint™ 👉 https://www.danielleblackcoaching.com.au/the-post-separation-parenting-blueprint-1 AI Danielle - Your 24/7 Digital Coach 👉 https://www.danielleblackcoaching.com.au/meet-ai-danielle 1:1 Coaching 👉 https://www.danielleblackcoaching.com.au/1-1-coaching The music you hear in this outro is 'Calm is Credible' - an original track created exclusively for the Post-Separation Abuse Podcast and Danielle Black Coaching. You can listen to this song, or download free, by visiting danielleblackcoaching.com.au About Danielle Black Coaching: Danielle Black is a respected authority in child-focused post-separation parenting in Australia. With over twenty years’ experience across education, counselling and coaching - alongside her own lived experience navigating a complex separation and family court journey - she supports parents to think strategically, build capacity, and protect their children’s safety and wellbeing within complex legal and relational systems. Through Danielle Black Coaching, she leads a growing team of specialist coaches and a structured support ecosystem designed to provide professionally held, evidence-informed guidance for parents navigating high-conflict separation and family court processes. Learn more at danielleblackcoaching.com.au This podcast is for educational purposes only and not legal advice. Please seek independent legal, medical, financial, or mental health advice for your situation.

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