Jacqueline Rourke

Reunited with her children after being alienated for a decade. Now a trusted expert on Parental Alienation.

Bilingual Edward R. Murrow Award-Winning Journalist
Expert in Parental Alienation & Parental Abductions

Parental alienation support and guidance through one of the hardest things a parent can endure — and rigorous, accurate insight for the professionals and journalists who need to understand it. Combining lived experience with peer-reviewed research.

Parents: You Are Not Alone

Are you losing — or have you already lost — your relationship with your child? Parental alienation support starts with being heard by someone who truly understands. I have been there. I lived nearly a decade of severe parental alienation and fully reconnected with all my children. My programs, strategies, and personal guidance are grounded in lived experience and current research — and designed to help you survive this, navigate it, and find your way back.

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Media & Journalists

Parental alienation is one of the most misreported stories in family law today — and one of the easiest to get wrong. As an Edward R. Murrow Award-winning journalist who has lived this issue from the inside, I offer accuracy, clarity, and a source who understands your deadline and your audience. Available for interviews, panels, and commentary in English and French.

Media Inquiries

Legal & Mental Health Professionals:

Most legal and mental health professionals miss parental alienation because nobody taught them what to look for. I offer training, consultation, and case guidance that fills that gap — grounded in current research and nearly a decade of lived experience. A clearer understanding of PA can reframe a difficult case entirely, and targeted parents who understand PA are steadier, more focused, and easier to work with.

Explore Resources
1 in 3
Separated or divorced parents in the US, UK & Canada
Reported being subjected to alienating behaviours *
10
Million Parents
in the US report having
lost all contact with their child.*
22
Million Parents
in the US report being the
targets of parental alienation.

What is Parental Alienation?

Parental alienation (PA) is a mental condition in which a child allies strongly with one parent and rejects a relationship with the other parent, without a good reason. This usually occurs with parents who are engaged in a high-conflict separation or divorce. PA also refers to the impaired relationship between the child and the rejected parent.*

The alienating parent is the parent who is indoctrinating or influencing the child to fear or shun the other parent. Alienating behaviour involves words and actions of the alienating parent that contribute to the child's rejection of the other parent.

Parental Alienation is not Estrangement. Estrangement refers to a child's rejection of a parent for a legitimate reason — such as a history of abuse or neglect. Alienation refers to a child's rejection of a parent without a good reason, as a result of indoctrination by the favoured parent. Courts, mental health professionals, and legal practitioners frequently confuse the two. Getting that distinction wrong has real consequences for children, for targeted parents, and for every professional working with them.

* Definition used by the Parental Alienation Study Group (PASG) — the world's leading international body of researchers, clinicians, legal scholars, and policy makers dedicated to the study and understanding of parental alienation.

I've Been There

For almost a decade, parental alienation took my children from me. I fought through the shame, the despair, and the disbelief of others. I waited for years, clinging to hope when everything else felt impossible. And eventually — without a court order or any special program, but with a great deal of hard-won knowledge about how to navigate alienation — I fully reconnected with all of my children. More than twelve years later, we remain close.

I am an Edward R. Murrow Award-winning journalist and, to my knowledge, one of very few people to have survived prolonged severe alienation and achieved full reconnection. I know this experience from the inside — every devastating part of it. And I know the way through.

If you are a targeted parent: I have been exactly where you are. It is possible. And you do not have to find your way alone.

*Harman, J.J., Leder-Elder, S. & Biringen, Z. (2019). Prevalence of adults who are the targets of parental alienating behaviors and their impact: Results from three national polls. Child & Youth Services Review, 106, 1–13.