Episode Details

When you're going through a divorce, the world doesn't stop spinning — but it can feel like everyone else's resources did. Therapy is expensive. Childcare is exhausting and often unaffordable. And the practical realities of building a new life on one income, while co-parenting, grieving, and showing up for your kids, can feel completely overwhelming. In this episode of Divorce Happens, host Olivia Howell sits down with Joy Read, co-founder of the National Association for Single and Divorced Families (NASDF) — a nonprofit membership organization built from the ground up to close the resource gap for families navigating divorce and single parenthood. Joy and her co-founder Ron modeled NASDF after AARP: a bundled benefits platform that gives members access to real, practical support — mental health care, child education discounts, financial advisors, mediators, and more — all for just $19 a month.

What Joy brings to this conversation is more than organizational expertise — it's personal conviction rooted in watching women she knows leave jobs because daycare was too expensive, then find themselves suddenly divorced with no financial runway. The mental health benefit alone is a game-changer: NASDF members can access free therapy sessions through Rikiro, a national telehealth platform, and Joy's vision is to expand that to up to eight free sessions per presenting condition — meaning a member struggling with both anxiety and depression could access sixteen free sessions for themselves, and more for their children. In a world where therapy routinely falls off the self-care list because it's simply unaffordable, NASDF is quietly building infrastructure to make it non-negotiable. Other benefits include 10% off tuition and priority registration through Learning Care Group, discounts on technology, school supplies, and even a mechanic hotline — everything a single parent scrambling to keep the household running actually needs.

At its heart, this episode is about one radical idea: that single and divorced families deserve a seat at the advocacy table. Joy talks about NASDF's 501(c) nonprofit arm and their long-term mission to combat intergenerational poverty through two-generation programming — addressing the needs of both parent and child simultaneously. She closes with words that feel like a gift: "Grief comes in waves. When one knocks you down, just wait. When it recedes, stand up, gather your breath, and know that none of it is going to drown you." If you are in the thick of divorce recovery, overwhelmed by single parenting, and wondering how other people are affording their lives right now — this episode is the answer you've been looking for. And the best part? It only costs $19 a month to get started at nasdf.org.

Lean more and sign up here: https://www.freshstartsregistry.com/resourceguide/national-association-for-single-and-divorced-families-nasdforg

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