Family Law Court orders for supervised contact in custodial disputes – unanswered questions

The focus of this study was on the application of orders for supervised access made by the Australian Family Law Court in cases that involved conflicting claims by custodial and noncustodial parents. Based on accessible Court transcripts for the 28-month period ending in early 2019, 103 cases involving 172 children were identified in which orders required supervision for visitation and/or changeovers. The patterns found through thematic analysis suggest that there is a shift to increasing use of final orders involving supervision through child contact centers as either an indeterminate or permanent arrangement. This shift has significant implications for current models of supervised access/changeover, and a greater understanding in terms of the outcomes being achieved is required.

Executive Order 13563 Creates Access to Affordable Child Support Orders for Incarcerated Parents

Former President Barack Obama issued Executive Order 13563: Improving Regulation and Regulatory Review in his last month of presidency, prohibit- ing States from treating incarceration as voluntary when considering a par- ent’s request for a modification of his or her child support order. Although fully expected to, President Donald Trump has yet to act on the executive order, which right-wing politicians fought vehemently against for two years. This Comment argues that the President should leave the order in action be- cause it will promote payment of child support and relationships between non- custodial parents and their children, as well as help to combat the cycle of incarceration that plagues low-income, noncustodial parents. This Comment also argues that courts should opt to suspend child-support payments for non- custodial parents when they face sentences that will produce significant arrear- ages by the time the parent is released from incarceration. Finally, the Comment will address how incarceration affects modification of support orders and the cycle of incarceration, who is affected by this cycle, and public views as to President Obama’s executive order that attempted to resolve such issues.

Distance Mothering

Contemporary families are diverse, though the diversity of configurations is not necessarily represented in society’s narrow definitions. This chapter focuses specifically on mothers who parent from a distance either because they have involuntarily lost custody or chose to relinquish custody to another caregiver. Noncustodial parents typically visit their children. This parenting arrangement creates a sociological opportunity to explore what it means to parent from a distance within the context of gendered notions and the family. Because noncustodial mothers violate expectations associated with dominant ideologies of motherhood (i.e., mother as primary caregiver), they provide a unique opportunity to explore the intersection between gender role expectations and parenting. This chapter discusses dominant definitions of motherhood, the experience of noncustodial mothers within the context of these dominant expectations—both in the United States and abroad—as well as the impact of long-distance mothering on the well-being of mothers and children.

Mass Incarceration, Family Complexity, and the Reproduction of Childhood Disadvantage

In this article we examine the link between family complexity—measured by noncustodial parenthood and multiple-partner fertility—and incarceration. In 2012, close to 2.6 million children, or roughly one in twenty-five minors, had a parent in jail or prison. The risk of having a parent currently or ever incarcerated is disproportionately concentrated among black children and children of high school dropouts, many of whom are noncustodial parents. Variation in question wording, differences in length of exposure to parental incarceration, and the measurement of residential parenthood in household-based sample surveys converge to produce different estimates of race and class inequality in having a parent currently or ever incarcerated, when compared to similar estimates of parental incarceration from inmate surveys. Drawing on data from multiple sources and the development of a new method for the estimation of multiple-partner fertility among inmates, we consider how race and class inequality in parental incarceration may contribute to family complexity and the reproduction of childhood disadvantage.

Child Support

Child support is the legal mechanism requiring parents to share in the economic support of their children. Under the law, parents are obligated to support their children regardless of whether they reside with them. Support calculations for noncustodial parents are based on many different factors, which vary from state to state. Enforcement is the single biggest challenge in the area of child support. The federal government continues to pass laws enhancing states' enforcement capabilities. Recipients of child support differ by race and ethnic group. Child support obligations are distinct from alimony and are usually independent of parenting time.

Family Support and BSW Field Experience Through a University-Based Supervised Visitation Program

Supervised visitation programs, which provide supervision of visits between noncustodial parents and their children in safe and comfortable environments, are expanding throughout this country. With this expansion they are also providing more family support services, especially parent coaching and therapeutic intervention. These programs offer ample learning opportunities for social work students in field placements. The program described here, which operates on a university campus and utilizes BSW students to monitor visits and conduct feedback sessions with visiting parents after each visit, may serve as a model for the development of more university-based programs. Initial research supports the effectiveness of services provided by undergraduate students in this program.