Episode
National Association for Single and Divorced Families (NASDF): The $19 Lifeline: Free Therapy, Childcare Discounts & Real Support for Divorced Families
- Podcast
- Divorce Happens
- Published
- Apr 16, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 987
- Processing state
not_requested- Canonical source
- https://www.freshstartsregistry.com/divorce-happens
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Summary
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, disco…