Make your changes to the Indiana Parenting Time Guidelines

The Indiana Domestic Relations Committee of the Judicial Conference of Indiana [DRC] met on Friday 22 January 2010 for the first session of the year. The Committee is comprised of 12 judges, magistrates or commissioners from throughout the state. Their purpose is to formulate the rules and guidelines that govern domestic relations cases in the Indiana Courts.

At the top of the agenda for 2010 is amending the Indiana Parenting Time Guidelines [IPTG]. Committee Chair Judge William Fee said he would like to complete the process by the end of the year.

This will be the first time that the IPTG have been amended since first written. The Committee is seeking input from a variety of sources including the public, practitioners, judges and professionals in the field of child custody or child psychology.

The Committee plans to meet on the following dates:
Friday 19 February 2010
Friday 19 March 2010
Friday 21 May 2010
Friday 16 July 2010
Friday 20 August 2010
Friday 22 October 2010*
* tentative

Although the meetings are open to the public they are not a public input session. Anyone who would like to attend a meeting may contact me and I will ask that he or she be added to the guest list.

The members of the Committee decided that they would like to receive public testimony in addition to written input. 19 March 2010 has been tentatively set as the date for a hearing to receive public testimony at the Indiana State House. I will provide additional information as it becomes available.

Judge Fee gave me an opportunity to present to the Committee for a few minutes. I introduced myself to the members I do not already know and then gave a brief history of the development of the Indiana Custodial Rights Advocates [InCRA]. I informed the members that InCRA is available as a resource for them to use in this process. We will provide testimonial and written input, do research and promote the input sessions to the public and media.

Robert Monday of the Children's Rights Council was also in attendance as he typically has been for all DRC meetings. Monday was an instrumental force in the recent revisions to the Indiana Child Support Guidelines.

I am grateful that I have been given a unique opportunity to be a voice for you to express your concerns about the IPTG. You will also have the opportunity to attend the public hearing and submit written input. I would like to have mothers and fathers including custodial and non-custodial parents [NCP] of each testifying. The Committee wants your input and providing them with feedback as to what has been and has not been effective using the IPTG will help them to better shape the Guidelines for the future.

Anyone who wants to testify or has suggestions should contact me. Written input, which I will take to the Committee, may be sent to me at P.O.B. 374, Lebanon, IN 46052. When the Committee posts the public input information on their website I will post that information here.

Some of the comments I heard at the meeting included that too often father is used as synonymous with NCP and mother is as the custodial parent; that there needs to be an emphasis on the Guidelines being only a guideline and not adopted as the typical parenting time plan, and; that the minimum time for NCP and newborns is not sufficient enough to allow for bonding.

The Guidelines are nothing more than a recommendation of what the MINIMUM should be. I will be proposing that the Committee needs to find a way to emphasize to judges, practitioners and litigants that giving our children the minimum is often not enough.

Currently there is a subcommittee working on parenting coordination. I fully support the concept that all parents who do not come to court with a parenting time plan should be sent to a parenting coordinator. One concern I have though is that the coordinators may have a bias in favour of mothers and not deviating significantly from the Guidelines.

Please do not miss this opportunity to make your changes to the Indiana Parenting Time Guidelines.

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