The Family Court Enhancement Project (FCEP), an initiative funded by the U.S. Department of Justice, Office on Violence Against Women (OVW), was a multiyear demonstration initiative designed to build the capacity of court systems and partner stakeholders to improve child custody decision-making in cases involving domestic violence. The FCEP enabled the project sites to explore, implement, and assess new and innovative court and non-court procedures and practices designed to improve custody and parenting time decision-making and overcome existing barriers identified during the assessment phase of the project. One important objective of the FCEP, as a demonstration initiative, is to share lessons learned and experiences, and outcomes with other communities so that they can benefit from the focused work at each project site. During the course of its intensive work with the FCEP sites, the project’s TA teams discerned several themes that emerged as each site engaged in efforts to improve its response to domestic violence in child custody cases. Building upon these themes in partnership with multiple stakeholders at each site, we identified five fundamental values that underlie the work and developed a set of Guiding Principles that enable courts and communities to incorporate those values into their systems, processes, and decision-making.
Guiding Principles for Effectively Addressing Child Custody and Parenting Time in Cases Involving Domestic Violence
organization_for_library:
National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges