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*'''Child specialists:''' neutral mental health experts, trained in collaborative negotiation, who may work with everybody and with the children to ensure the children's wishes and preferences are heard; they, in turn, also make recommendations about the parenting plan that best meet the children's needs.
This sounds like an awful lot of professionals, ; however, in collaborative processes the lawyers and their clients work together to build the team that best suits their needs and circumstances. As well, this approach provides a more specialized, and often more cost-effective, way to deal with separation than just leaving it all to the lawyers. Most collaborative professionals believe that this process is normally more cost-effective and more efficient than litigation.
The purpose of collaborative negotiation is to help the parties negotiate a reasonable settlement that restructures their family in the most positive manner possible, recognizing that families continue and need to flourish despite the separation of the adults involved. Parents ''must'' be able to effectively work together to raise their children long after their romantic relationship has come to an end, and that is the fundamental goal of collaborative negotiation.