You were never supposed to figure this out on your own. The system just never got the memo. We did.
RETAIN Coaching gives you a proven framework, a certified coach, and a community of parents who are also in the thick of it with you, for every phase of your parental leave and return journey.
Becoming a working parent is one of the biggest personal and professional transitions you’ll navigate. Most people do it without a map.
There’s a reason this feels as hard as it does. You’re not just welcoming a new child to your family, you’re reshaping your identity, your career, your relationships, and your sense of self, all at once, while sleep-deprived, while the world expects you to bounce back, while your workplace quietly wonders when you’ll be “back to normal.”
Nobody prepares you for this. Not your employer, not your HR department, not the parenting books. The United States has literally the least supported parental leave culture in the developed world, and most parents walk into this transition completely alone, figuring it out in real time, at the worst possible moment to be improvising.
That’s not a personal failure. That’s a system failure.
RETAIN Coaching exists because you deserve better than guesswork. You deserve a proven framework, a coach who’s trained specifically for this very unique transition, and a community of parents who are living it alongside you. That’s what we’ve spent two decades building because we’re all caregivers too and we are passionate about making this easier for you.
Lead Your Leave®
Most parents arrive at each phase of their parental leave unprepared. Not because they didn’t try, but because no one told them what to prepare for. Lead Your Leave® changes that. It’s a structured, self-paced program built specifically for the parent navigating this 3 Phase Transition (preparing, during, returning), grounded in the same evidence-based methodology used by coaches working with parents across the country.
You won’t be guessing what to do next. You’ll have a plan and support, so you arrive at every phase prepared, not scrambling.
Key tools included:
The Parental Leave Transition Assessment (PLTA)™
The only validated parental leave self-assessment in existence, giving you a personalized report identifying your unique strengths, challenges, and where to focus your limited time and energy.
Next Steps: Action Plan™
Build internal capability through the Leave Leader™ Manager Training Series, develop certified in-house RETAIN Coaches, or work with us to create a custom training program for your organization.
North Star Values Exercise™
A values clarification tool to ground your decisions when everything else feels like it’s shifting beneath you.
The Parental Leave Playbook©
Written by our founder, the first and only book to offer you a parental-leave-coach-in-your-hand. Included digitally so you have it at every phase.
One transition. Three phases. A clear role for you at every step.
Work Focus Preparing For Leave
This is where most parents feel the pressure build; the to-do lists, the handoff planning, the conversations you’re not sure how to start with your manager. Preparing for Leave is about getting ahead of all of it. You’ll use your Parental Leave Transition Assessment results to understand your unique strengths and vulnerabilities going in, build your Next Steps: Action Plan with your manager and coverage team, and arrive at your leave date feeling organized, communicated, and ready—not still guessing.
Parent Focus During Leave
Leave itself is its own transition. Your identity is shifting. Your relationship to work is shifting. And somewhere in the middle of all of that, you’re keeping a tiny human alive. During Leave support is about helping you stay connected to yourself—your values, your wellbeing, your sense of who you are as both a parent and a professional, your relationships at home—so that when it’s time to return, you’re on solid ground.
Working Parent Focus Returning From Leave
Return isn’t a date on the calendar. It’s a prolonged transition that can stretch months beyond your first day back, and it’s where we see the most talent quietly walk out the door. Returning from Leave support treats reentry as what it actually is—a major adjustment—and gives you the tools, community, and coaching to navigate it without losing your footing at work, or at home.
Two coaching formats. One proven framework.
Everyone comes to this transition differently. Some parents want structure and community but need the flexibility to move at their own pace. Others want a real human in their corner—someone trained specifically for this moment who can help them work through what’s coming up in real time.
RETAIN Coaching was built for both.
The RETAIN Coaching Hub
The Hub gives you full access to the Lead Your Leave® program, your Essential PLTA Report, your Next Steps: Action Plan, the Parental Leave Playbook, and a community of parents navigating this transition at the same time you are. Additional wrap-around support includes live events and expert webinars, perinatal mental health screening and resourcing, live RETAIN Coach led office hours, and more. You move at your own pace, on your own schedule, with everything you need already in one place.
1:1 Coaching with a Certified RETAIN Coach
If you want a trained thinking partner who knows this transition inside and out, hire one of our certified RETAIN Coaches to work with you directly, one on one, across whichever phases you need most—Hub access included. Your coach uses the same proven frameworks and tools as the Hub, but tailors every conversation to your specific situation, your workplace, your family, and what’s actually keeping you up at night. All RETAIN Coaches are also trained by our partner organization, Postpartum Support International, to help you recognize when what you are experiencing might go beyond the normal “baby blues” to something needing more support–for both moms or dads.
Not sure which is right for you?
Start with our Leave Launch package – two personalized coaching sessions, an Enhanced Parental Leave Transition Assessment (PLTA) Report, guided 3 Phase leave planning using our Next Steps: Action Plan template, and RETAIN Hub access. You can always add more coaching later.
It’s not rocket science, but it is science. And the research backs it up.
RETAIN Coaching was built on research and evidence, then surrounded in heart and human exerperience. It is a difference you can feel immediately and one our outcomes reflect:
100%
Would recommend RETAIN Coaching to others
100%
Rated the program effective
80%
More confident meeting work and home demands
67%
Reported increased productivity
67%
Experienced better health and wellbeing
60%
Returned with more confidence at work
Starting points worth your time right now.
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Wish your workplace offered this?
If you’re in the second group, you’re not alone, and you’re not without options. Many of the parents who’ve brought RETAIN Coaching to their workplace started exactly where you are right now. A single conversation with HR or a people manager is often all it takes to get the ball rolling—and we’ve made that conversation as easy as possible for you.
Your employer doesn’t need to reinvent their parental leave policy or programming to offer this. RETAIN Coaching fits into what most organizations already have. It just makes it actually work.
How to bring this to your workplace:
Send your HR team to CPLLeadership.com and ask them to book a free Leave Leadership Advisory Call. It’s the easiest first step—and it costs them nothing.
You don’t have to figure this out alone.
Join the RETAIN Coaching Hub and get access to a proven framework, a community of parents who get it, and the support you actually need for every phase of your parental leave journey.