Custody

If you are not comfortable with the abuser being alone with your child, you might be thinking about asking the judge to require 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 one 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, county, or judge, the judge might order a professional to observe the other parent on a certain number of visits, or the visits might be supervised by a relative for a certain amount of time. If there are no obvious problems, the visits may likely become unsupervised. Often, at the end of a case, the other parent can end up with more frequent or longer visits than they had before you went into court. The other parent could even get some form of decision-making power.

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