fantascination
Member
Sorry. This is going to be a long and bumpy ride.
So my brother is nine years old and severely disabled. He has a diagnosis of septo-optic dysplasia, but he also has significant issues with nutrition and digestion. He is non-verbal, fed primarily through a feeding tube, and requires behavioral medication. He is very time- and resource-intensive, and my mother also has three other children living in the house. I am living in a different state and trying to help her remotely.
My mother shares custody of the child with his father. They got divorced a few years ago due to severe emotional abuse, among other things. He is very controlling and manipulative, which will be important later on. Their custody agreement is arranged so that my mother carries the bulk of caring for the child, but they share legal and medical custody over him. We are aware that this is a poor custody arrangement - my mother was excessively agreeable due to the desperation of leaving an abusive marriage, and ending a situation where none of us felt safe. With the current agreement, his care of the child is minimal - he uses a large chunk of the child's allotted care for respite (trained workers take the child for games/developmental play for a few hours). He does not attend doctor's appointments or care meetings.
However, despite no actual involvement, he routinely interferes with my mother's attempts to care for the child. Because they have shared custody, the child's doctors and care teams cannot proceed with any treatment if he objects to it - and he does, almost every time. He has called doctors, therapists and the child's care managers to object to treatment, and those doctors and therapists have in turn informed my mother that they cannot proceed with care. He was, at one point, scheduled for an inpatient program to be observed so that a care plan could be formulated for him - but the father called and objected, and so the inpatient appointment was cancelled. He also objects to changes in medication and things like that. A respite worker for the child made an unfounded CPS report at his direction - he told her to call and told her what to say, resulting in a CPS investigation that yielded no signs of neglect or abuse, and traumatized all four of their children together. We do not disclose information about the child's care to him, so we're not sure how he figures out who to call and object to - but we suspect that the child's care managers disclose the information to him when my mother notifies them for insurance purposes. My mother was also recently notified by the child's care managers that they are no longer allowed to speak to her unless he allows it - I'm not sure how this is legal or possible, but there's that. He is very manipulative, as I said. There are no other companies in the area that can manage the child's care, and our objections to the company itself have gone intentionally ignored - we have no grounds to complain, I don't think, because they share custody.
Given that the father's interest in actually caring for the child is minimal, we believe that he is doing this as a means of control over my mother - because lack of care for the child means my mother devotes all of her time and energy to caring for him, and has no time to pursue other interests or move on with her life.
We understand that a renegotiation of the custody agreement is needed, but my mother is not financially able to hire a lawyer and take him back to court. I am not in a position to fund a lawyer, either. My mother also relies on the father's taking of the children to get basically everything else done - household cleaning, working, etc., and she is afraid of losing those days. He will definitely threaten to take them away once we take him back to court, because he knows she relies on them as well.
My question is: is there any kind of legal assistance for families in this kind of situation? Any kind of legal action short of a custody renegotiation we can take? ANY kind of advocacy programs, legal assistance or subsidizing programs, anything? I am willing to hear any and all options. My entire family continues to suffer because of this man's continued interference, and something has to be done. I am open to any and all possibilities. Thank you - I know this is a lot to unpack.
So my brother is nine years old and severely disabled. He has a diagnosis of septo-optic dysplasia, but he also has significant issues with nutrition and digestion. He is non-verbal, fed primarily through a feeding tube, and requires behavioral medication. He is very time- and resource-intensive, and my mother also has three other children living in the house. I am living in a different state and trying to help her remotely.
My mother shares custody of the child with his father. They got divorced a few years ago due to severe emotional abuse, among other things. He is very controlling and manipulative, which will be important later on. Their custody agreement is arranged so that my mother carries the bulk of caring for the child, but they share legal and medical custody over him. We are aware that this is a poor custody arrangement - my mother was excessively agreeable due to the desperation of leaving an abusive marriage, and ending a situation where none of us felt safe. With the current agreement, his care of the child is minimal - he uses a large chunk of the child's allotted care for respite (trained workers take the child for games/developmental play for a few hours). He does not attend doctor's appointments or care meetings.
However, despite no actual involvement, he routinely interferes with my mother's attempts to care for the child. Because they have shared custody, the child's doctors and care teams cannot proceed with any treatment if he objects to it - and he does, almost every time. He has called doctors, therapists and the child's care managers to object to treatment, and those doctors and therapists have in turn informed my mother that they cannot proceed with care. He was, at one point, scheduled for an inpatient program to be observed so that a care plan could be formulated for him - but the father called and objected, and so the inpatient appointment was cancelled. He also objects to changes in medication and things like that. A respite worker for the child made an unfounded CPS report at his direction - he told her to call and told her what to say, resulting in a CPS investigation that yielded no signs of neglect or abuse, and traumatized all four of their children together. We do not disclose information about the child's care to him, so we're not sure how he figures out who to call and object to - but we suspect that the child's care managers disclose the information to him when my mother notifies them for insurance purposes. My mother was also recently notified by the child's care managers that they are no longer allowed to speak to her unless he allows it - I'm not sure how this is legal or possible, but there's that. He is very manipulative, as I said. There are no other companies in the area that can manage the child's care, and our objections to the company itself have gone intentionally ignored - we have no grounds to complain, I don't think, because they share custody.
Given that the father's interest in actually caring for the child is minimal, we believe that he is doing this as a means of control over my mother - because lack of care for the child means my mother devotes all of her time and energy to caring for him, and has no time to pursue other interests or move on with her life.
We understand that a renegotiation of the custody agreement is needed, but my mother is not financially able to hire a lawyer and take him back to court. I am not in a position to fund a lawyer, either. My mother also relies on the father's taking of the children to get basically everything else done - household cleaning, working, etc., and she is afraid of losing those days. He will definitely threaten to take them away once we take him back to court, because he knows she relies on them as well.
My question is: is there any kind of legal assistance for families in this kind of situation? Any kind of legal action short of a custody renegotiation we can take? ANY kind of advocacy programs, legal assistance or subsidizing programs, anything? I am willing to hear any and all options. My entire family continues to suffer because of this man's continued interference, and something has to be done. I am open to any and all possibilities. Thank you - I know this is a lot to unpack.
