U.S. Virgin Islands Custody

Physical and legal custody can either be sole, where one parent has it alone, or joint, where it’s shared between the parents. Any combination of the two is possible. Parents or caregivers can have joint physical custody in which, for example, the child spends half the week at one person’s house and half the week at the other’s, or they can have joint legal custody in which they share decision-making responsibility for the child.

The most common arrangement in the Virgin Islands is for one parent to have sole physical custody and both parents sharing joint legal custody. Generally, the courts favor both parents having maximum contact with the child.

If you are not comfortable with the abuser being alone with your child, you might be thinking about asking the judge to order that visits with your child be supervised. If you are already in court because the abuser filed for visitation or custody, 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 visits. 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 the visits supervised and how long supervised visits would last, based on the facts of your case.

In the majority of cases, supervised visits are only a temporary measure. Although the exact visitation order will vary by state/territory, county, or judge, the judge might order a professional to observe the other parent on a certain amount of visits or the visits might be supervised by a relative for a certain amount of time – and if there are no obvious problems, the visits 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 VI Finding a Lawyer to seek out legal advice.

There are four main ways to establish paternity:

1. Marriage- Paternity is automatically established if parents are married when their child is conceived or born. The law assumes the mother’s spouse is the child’s legal parent. The parents don’t have to take extra steps unless they want someone else to be the legal father.¹ However, if the parents marry after their child is born, they need to file an acknowledgment of paternity unless they already filed one before getting married.²
2. Acknowledgment of paternity- An “acknowledgment of paternity” is an official form parents can use to agree that someone is a child’s father.³ It is also called an “affidavit of paternity.”⁴ Both parents need to sign the form in front of a notary.⁵ This can be done at the hospital or birthing center when the child is born or later at another location. The signed form must be filed with the Department of Health, Office of Vital Statistics within 30 days.⁶
3. Court case- Paternity can be decided in court.⁷ If there is disagreement about who the father is, the judge will order a DNA test (genetic testing) to confirm the biological father.⁸ A paternity case can be started by:

• the child’s mother;
• a man claiming to be the child’s father; or
• someone else with legal custody of the child (legal custodian).⁸

4. Administrative process- The government’s Paternity and Child Support Division can help establish paternity. The child’s mother, father, or legal custodian can apply for paternity and child support services. Or, if the child receives public assistance, the case may be referred automatically for these services.⁹

¹ 19 V.I.C. § 833(a)
² 16 V.I.C. § 296; 19 V.I.C. § 833(b)
³ 16 V.I.C. § 292(a)
⁴ 16 V.I.C. § 291(b)
⁵ 16 V.I.C. § 292(a)(4)
⁶ 16 V.I.C. § 292(b), (c)
⁷ 16 V.I.C. § 293
⁸ 16 V.I.C. § 293(f)
⁹ 16 V.I.C. § 293(a)
¹⁰ 16 V.I.C. § 293; Department of Justice’s Paternity and Child Support website