Calculating Safety: Reckoning with Domestic Violence in the Context of Child Support Parenting Time Initiatives

• Author: Gabrielle Davis,Nancy Ver Steegh
• Date: 01 April 2015
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/fcre.12150
• Published date: 01 April 2015

CALCULATING SAFETY: RECKONING WITH DOMESTIC VIOLENCE

IN THE CONTEXT OF CHILD SUPPORT PARENTING

TIME INITIATIVES

Nancy Ver Steegh and Gabrielle Davis

This article explores domestic violence–related implications of federal and state initiatives seeking to establish parenting time

in connection with entry of child support orders. The authors recommend and explore two critical family violence safeguards.

First, parents need the information and support required by them to make deliberativedecisions about parenting time, including:

(1) understanding the legal meaning, consequences, and practical effect of formally establishing parenting time; (2) exploration

of the extent to which various parenting time arrangements are in the best interests of the child; and (3) knowledgeof the nature

of dispute resolution and court processes available to them. Second, parents, rather than child support officials, should decide

whether, when, and how to pursue establishment of parenting time.

Key Points for the Family Court Community:

• The impact of domestic violence on parenting and on child safety and well-being varies extensively.

• Some survivors of domestic violence are forced to make high-stakes calculations regarding the safety and well-being

of their children in the context of parenting time initiatives.

• Deliberative, informed, and voluntary decision making about parenting time is a key family violence safeguard.

• Domestic violence exclusions are only partially effective,in part because they unrealistically rely on quick and accurate

identification and assessment of domestic violence and its implications.

• Parents should decide whether, when, and how to establishparenting time.

Keywords: Child Support;Domestic Abuse;Domestic Violence;Family Violence Safeguards;Informed Decision Making;

Intimate Partner Violence;and ParentingTime

INTRODUCTION

Policy makers and stakeholders have been engaged in a national discussion about establishing

parenting time for never-married noncustodial parents when initial child support orders are entered.

Doing so would provide parents, who might otherwise have to file more cumbersome court actions,

with streamlined methods of formalizing parenting time arrangements. On September 29, 2014,

Congress weighed in on the matter by enacting a Sense of Congress provision that “establishing

parenting time arrangements when obtaining child support orders is an important goal which should

be accompanied by strong family violence safeguards.”1

A number of valuable domestic violence safeguards already exist and are customarily applied in

child support settings, including address confidentiality, limited in-person contact, and exemptions

from mandatory participation in programs and services.2Those types of safeguards should continue

to be maintained in all parenting time proceedings. This article focuses on two additional “strong

family violence safeguards” and the practicalities—and potential impracticalities—of developing

parenting time arrangements for never-married noncustodial parents who have committed or who

have been subjected to intimate partner abuse by the other parent.3First, it recommends expanding

existing safeguards to provide the information and support never-married parents with a history of

domestic abuse need to make deliberate decisions about parenting time. Second, it urges that when-

ever parenting time services are offered, parents, rather than child support officials and/or designees,

should decide whether, when and how to pursue establishment of parenting time.

Correspondence: nancy.versteegh@wmitchell.edu; gdavis@bwjp.org

FAMILY COURT REVIEW, Vol.53 No. 2, April 2015 279–291

© 2015 Association of Familyand Conciliation Cour ts