Planning for Parenting Time

The Arizona Supreme Court has published  Planning for Parenting Time: Arizona's Guide for Parents Living Apart.     With numerous caveats, including that the "guide does not provide legal opinions or legal advice and is not intended to serve as a substitute for the advice of licensed, legal professionals," the publication suggests parenting plans through various stages of a child's development and addresses several issues such as absent parent reunification, blended families, long distance parent, special needs children, etc.   Parents may find this a useful resource.  

November Election Impacts Family Court Services

King County Family Court Services has suspended all evaluation case assignments. In related news, Caroline Davis, Executive Director of Family Law CASA of King County, published the following open letter to the community:

Family Law CASA is aware that Family Court Services (FCS) has stopped accepting new referrals for parenting evaluations pending the outcome of the vote in November to increase the sales tax. (They are continuing to perform domestic violence evaluations and mediations). This leaves us as the only agency providing advocacy for low and moderate income families in contested custody cases in King County. Unfortunately, we simply do not have the staff to absorb the volume of cases that FCS has handled in the past. We are at full capacity with our current caseload. To increase our caseload we would need to hire another supervisor and we do not presently have the funds to do so. The recession has made fundraising more challenging and we have had to trim our budget.

What can the community do to help? First be aware that we only accept cases with a combined gross income of $70,000 or less. For families above that income range, a guardian ad litem should be appointed if needed. Secondly we have asked our advocates to respond to us as quickly as possible when we are in the process of assigning a case so that we can shorten the time from when the court appoints CASA to when an investigation begins. We ask attorneys to properly notify us of all scheduling changes for motions, trials, and settlement conferences. Family law attorneys should educate their staff about the court rules and requirements of notice to Family Law CASA on cases in which we have been appointed. We also ask attorneys to timely complete the final papers for cases that have settled or gone to trial, reminding them that we need to review all agreed or final orders.

Finally I will point out the obvious. If we receive more donations, more corporate support and more grant funding, we can hire an additional advocate supervisor and increase our case load. Every donation helps so if you are concerned about the loss of an important service for children in this community, please donate.

Caroline D. Davis,
Executive Director
Family Law CASA

Washington State Child Support Worksheet Calculator

All child support orders entered in Washington must apply the Washington State Child Support Schedule (WSCSS), and Worksheets must be completed and filed in every child support proceeding. To help parties estimate the amount of child support that might be ordered in their own cases, the Division of Child Support (DCS) of the Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS) created the Washington State Child Support Schedule Calculator.
Here are additional Washington State child support resources (with hyperlinks):

• Child Support Worksheets & WSCSS Schedule
• Temporary Order - Child Support (Dissolution)
• Temporary Order - Child Support (unmarried)
• Child Support Modification
• Adjustment of Child Support
• Uniform Interstate Family Support Act (UIFSA)