Custody

If you are not comfortable with the abuser being alone with your child, you might be thinking about asking the judge to order that his/her parenting time with your child be supervised. If you are already in court because the abuser filed for custody or parenting time, you may not have much to lose by asking that the visits be supervised if you can present a valid reason for your request, although this may depend on your situation.

However, if there is no current court case, please get legal advice before you start a court case to ask for supervised parenting time. We strongly recommend that you talk to an attorney who specializes in custody matters to find out what you would have to prove to get supervised parenting time and how long supervised visits would last, based on the facts of your case.

In the majority of cases, supervised parenting time is only a temporary measure. Although the exact parenting time order will vary by state, county, or judge, the judge might order a professional to observe the other parent on a certain amount of visits. Another common alternative is for the parenting time to be supervised by a relative for a certain amount of time. If there are no obvious problems during this visits, they may likely become unsupervised. Oftentimes, at the end of a case, the other parent ends up with more frequent and/or longer visits than s/he had before you went into court or even some form of custody.

In some cases, to protect your child from immediate danger by the abuser, starting a case to ask for custody and supervised visits is appropriate. To find out what may be best in your situation, please go to MI Finding a Lawyer to seek out legal advice.