The United States Supreme Court has long recognized the “fundamental right of parents to make decisions concerning the care, custody, and control of their children.”1 This fundamental right to parent is why the Indiana Courts place the burden of proof on the Department of Child Services (“DCS”) when it comes to proving that a child is a child in need of services (“CHINS”). Specifically, our Indiana Supreme Court has found that DCS must prove three basic elements for a CHINS finding.2 Those elements are: (1) that the parent’s actions or inactions have seriously endangered the child; (2) that the child’s ... Read More
Tag: counseling
01
Apr2019
08
Jun2016
Most parents, judges, and domestic attorneys view hearings and custody modifications or contempt filings as a last resort, not the first way to resolve a dispute. However, the conflict of divorce or post-divorce matters often obscures some of the legal and non-legal methods parents may resolve disputes about parenting time outside of court.
The first and relatively newer type of tool is a parenting coordinator. There are different levels of authority a “PC” may have. These range from just trying to broker an agreement in real time as they arise to making (in more contentious cases) a binding decision until the ... Read More