Restraining Orders

[IF YOU NEED TO CLARIFY THE V’S QUESTION, YOU CAN INCLUDE THIS OR SOMETHING LIKE THIS. IF IT’S OBVIOUS THAT THIS IS WHAT SHE IS ASKING, YOU DON’T NEED THIS PARAGRAPH: I believe you are asking about a situation where you want to get a restraining order against your child’s father for your own protection but you still want the father to have contact with your child – is that accurate? If I am misunderstanding your question, please write back to clarify.]

In general, if children aren’t included as “protected parties” on an order of protection, then the respondent can still legally see his/her children. Sometimes a third party, such as a relative or friend, can help to facilitate visitation so that the victim and respondent/abuser don’t have to see each other or have any contact. Or if there is a visitation center that does supervised exchanges, this can be another option for exchanging a child between the parents. If neither of these options exist, it’s possible to have the order be structured so that it orders the abuser to have no contact with the victim except for during exchanges of the child. However, this could allow the abuser to continue the abuse during visitation exchanges. Therefore, a petitioner may ask for the exchanges to be done at the local police precinct or another public place where the victim feels safe.

In many cases, within an order of protection, the judge can include specific visitation terms and custody terms. As you can see from our website, in STATE, a protection order can include custody and visitation terms [GO TO THE QU ABOUT WHAT PROTECTIONS YOU CAN GET IN AN RO AND CHECK THAT THIS IS TRUE - THEN HYPERLINK TO THAT QUESTION]. So, for example, the order can include the dates and times for pick-ups and exchanges of the child. The benefit of making the order specific as to the visitation arrangement is because if there is no court order that specifies when kids have to be returned to the petitioner, the abuser may have equal rights to the children and not have to return them after a visit.

Sometimes, a victim may decide to get a protection order without any visitation terms and without an exception that allows contact for the child. In this case, often times the respondent may file for visitation or even custody if his/her time with the children is taken away by a protection order.

If you want legal advice specific to your situation, you may want to look for a lawyer on our Finding a Lawyer page. [LINK]