NCP Mother who is being asked by PC to do supervised visitation based on an incident that CPS has investigated and closed. Why?

[NCPMom]

NORTH CAROLINA

NCP Mother who is being asked by PC to do supervised visitation based on an incident that CPS has already investigated and deemed a non issue no services recommended and case is closed. Should so have to do it?

I am currently fighting with my lawyer on this issue because she feels having a neutral 3rd party involved will provide me with a witness testimony, stating that I am a good parent, however. I am not sure how this works to my court case to me it looks awfully bad to be asked to do supervise visitation when I have already been told by CPS that I'm not a threat. Why would I agree to this. She was the one that convinced me to get the parenting coordinator because she's a parenting coordinator herself, but this is been extremely traumatic for me and for my child they are asking me too sit with my child in a 4 x 4, enclosed space office and 4 hours a 4 days out of the week honestly, the whole thing feels like jail. The CP is now saying one of my days will need to go because they can't transport child to center 35 plus minutes from where we both reside (separate residences). Facilitator feels uncomfortable doing home visits due to the high conflict of relationship between parties. In lieu of this while the incident occurred on the 15th of January was falsely reported, and I have a closer letter for proof. I have missed over 10 days of visitation and three weeks without seeing my child over this my attorney kept advising me over and over to agree with the supervised visits from the parenting coordinator but I just don't understand WHY??

since the case is already been investigated, why not petition to file a motion I have a closure letter from CPS based on the incident that sparked the supervised visitation to begin with. And the parent and coordinator knew that the CPS case was going to get closed. I'm thoroughly confused as to why I am not being advised to do this? Attorney feels it's not the right thing to do to file a motion.

Also, I'm highly concerned as to how this looks for my case. My overall goal is to eventually get full custody back of my child as I had full custody of my child from birth to 2022 I'm a single parent in a third-party custody situation. Maternal grandparent has the child who is eight. I was a valuated for parental and fitness due to mental health issues that I am actively treating with therapy and medication. I do not see why not. I could not petition the court to get custody back of my child. I do understand that the other party has written time does slanderous affidavits against me and literally every person in my family has written an affidavit. Most of them are completely untrue, and totally made up for the benefit of the other party. I also have pass history with CPS, but all of the cases have been closed and anything that did have findings they were not criminal, and I followed all the recommendations of the social worker pursuing the case and the cases were all closed and I have closure letters to prove it. I live 10 minutes from my child school. I have two full-time jobs. I don't understand why I cannot petition the court for custody back. However, my lawyer, keep saying it's a bad idea. Back in 2022 I consented to sign my custodial rights away to my sons, maternal grandparent, because at the time I was told by my attorney that that would be the only way that they would lift the protection order. There was a DVPO order on me because of an altercation that I had with my mother that has since been dropped because she dropped the charges. It was the one incident that I did not face time for. I am not condoning that behavior but it has been dropped. I'm just trying to get legal advice here. They use the one incident that I really feel. It was a set up for emergency custody and DVPO. I went five months without seeing my son and then I was told that I would not be able to see him unless I consented to signing my rights away. So here I am it's now 2024 and my mother called CPS on me for a completely unfounded reason. I have actual video footage to back up that she completely lied both of my attorneys know CPS completely throughout the case and I asked to do supervised visitation from my parenting coordinator and my attorney wants me not to file the motion. Why

 

[Zigner]

You are represented. Address your questions to your attorney. If you don't understand why your attorney wants to do things a certain way, ask for clarification. If you don't feel that your attorney is operating with your best interests in mind, then find a new attorney.

 

[NCPMom]

I want a second opinion

 

[Just Blue]

I want a second opinion

Then take you should get a consult with another attorney. You can contact your state Bar Association to get a referral or 3.

This site is for general guidance... none of the attorney volunteers or educated laypersons who post here would be able to give you a second opinion based on your posting... and frankly it would be wrong to second guess an attorney that has all the facts of the full case.

 

[commentator]

I'm going to paraphrase here, but a poet once said, "Oh wad some power the gift to gie us, to see oursels as others see us, it wad from many a blunder free us."

You really really need to take your lawyer's advice. In the first place, the courts, the lawyers, the judges, and CPS are not in some massive coordinated effort against you. You say that you have already been exonerated by CPS and that should automatically be enough to cause the family court decision makers to understand that you do not need supervised visitation. This is, of course, totally your opinion. You cannot force anyone else to see things your way. When you recite exactly how many visitations you have been entitled to that you have missed, how long you had the child without problems, how this situation came about, this might possibly worry people that you are using this whole situation to prove something, instead of figuring out how best to serve the interests of the child.

When you throw heaps of verbiage onto the argument that you do not need supervised visitation and that you should be given immediate and total access to your child, explaining and over-explaining how and why and what should be, it might tend to frighten them. You sound very impatient and verbose and as if you are in a competition of some kind, rather than in a long term effort to provide the best possible parenting of your child. That may not be what you feel or intend to convey, but that's what is coming across. That's why you need to listen to the lawyer. They are seeing you and hearing you, and they also are familiar with the local authorities, and understand how they are most likely to look at things.

You should welcome this opportunity with the supervised visitation to demonstrate what a good parent you are and how well you and your child can relate. This also protects you from any immediate accusations of not being a fit parent or from having any sort of problems with the situation. You definitely do not want to take the risk of getting out on your own regarding visitation and then having CPS called in a second (or third or fourth, whatever it would be ) time. This would really ruin your chances of further custody potential.

I hope that you can knock the socks off the supervised parenting situation, and that you and your child can have a good series of contacts leading to a more secure parenting situation for you. But listen to your lawyer and do what they are telling you to do. You are not seeing and hearing this from the outside. They are.

 

[Just Blue]

I'm going to paraphrase here, but a poet once said, "Oh wad some power the gift to gie us, to see oursels as others see us, it wad from many a blunder free us."

You really really need to take your lawyer's advice. In the first place, the courts, the lawyers, the judges, and CPS are not in some massive coordinated effort against you. You say that you have already been exonerated by CPS and that should automatically be enough to cause the family court decision makers to understand that you do not need supervised visitation. This is, of course, totally your opinion. You cannot force anyone else to see things your way. When you recite exactly how many visitations you have been entitled to that you have missed, how long you had the child without problems, how this situation came about, this might possibly worry people that you are using this whole situation to prove something, instead of figuring out how best to serve the interests of the child.

When you throw heaps of verbiage onto the argument that you do not need supervised visitation and that you should be given immediate and total access to your child, explaining and over-explaining how and why and what should be, it might tend to frighten them. You sound very impatient and verbose and as if you are in a competition of some kind, rather than in a long term effort to provide the best possible parenting of your child. That may not be what you feel or intend to convey, but that's what is coming across. That's why you need to listen to the lawyer. They are seeing you and hearing you, and they also are familiar with the local authorities, and understand how they are most likely to look at things.

You should welcome this opportunity with the supervised visitation to demonstrate what a good parent you are and how well you and your child can relate. This also protects you from any immediate accusations of not being a fit parent or from having any sort of problems with the situation. You definitely do not want to take the risk of getting out on your own regarding visitation and then having CPS called in a second (or third or fourth, whatever it would be ) time. This would really ruin your chances of further custody potential.

I hope that you can knock the socks off the supervised parenting situation, and that you and your child can have a good series of contacts leading to a more secure parenting situation for you. But listen to your lawyer and do what they are telling you to do. You are not seeing and hearing this from the outside. They are.

Very well said, Commentator!

 

[stealth2]

I want a second opinion

Then you really need to speak with a lawyer in the proper jurisdiction who has access to the entire "story" - not an Internet forum. Best of luck.

 

[paddywakk]

"...I have missed over 10 days of visitation and three weeks without seeing my child over this my attorney kept advising me over and over to agree with the supervised visits from the parenting coordinator but I just don't understand WHY??"

Just my 2 cents, but rather than comply with supervised visitation while you fight the need for it you choose to not see your child at all seems a red flag to me.

 

[LdiJ]

I'm going to paraphrase here, but a poet once said, "Oh wad some power the gift to gie us, to see oursels as others see us, it wad from many a blunder free us."

You really really need to take your lawyer's advice. In the first place, the courts, the lawyers, the judges, and CPS are not in some massive coordinated effort against you. You say that you have already been exonerated by CPS and that should automatically be enough to cause the family court decision makers to understand that you do not need supervised visitation. This is, of course, totally your opinion. You cannot force anyone else to see things your way. When you recite exactly how many visitations you have been entitled to that you have missed, how long you had the child without problems, how this situation came about, this might possibly worry people that you are using this whole situation to prove something, instead of figuring out how best to serve the interests of the child.

When you throw heaps of verbiage onto the argument that you do not need supervised visitation and that you should be given immediate and total access to your child, explaining and over-explaining how and why and what should be, it might tend to frighten them. You sound very impatient and verbose and as if you are in a competition of some kind, rather than in a long term effort to provide the best possible parenting of your child. That may not be what you feel or intend to convey, but that's what is coming across. That's why you need to listen to the lawyer. They are seeing you and hearing you, and they also are familiar with the local authorities, and understand how they are most likely to look at things.

You should welcome this opportunity with the supervised visitation to demonstrate what a good parent you are and how well you and your child can relate. This also protects you from any immediate accusations of not being a fit parent or from having any sort of problems with the situation. You definitely do not want to take the risk of getting out on your own regarding visitation and then having CPS called in a second (or third or fourth, whatever it would be ) time. This would really ruin your chances of further custody potential.

I hope that you can knock the socks off the supervised parenting situation, and that you and your child can have a good series of contacts leading to a more secure parenting situation for you. But listen to your lawyer and do what they are telling you to do. You are not seeing and hearing this from the outside. They are.

I very much agree with this advice, but I also think that it would be ok to explore alternative options for supervision that would not require a 35 minute drive for both parties. That is a hardship on both sides of the table and the other party has already said that the number of visits per week would have to be cut back 1 day because they can't do the drive that many times.

 

[commentator]

If this is a rural area, and NC does have lots of them, the participants will have this much of a drive to almost anywhere they are going. I don't feel that the hardship of the distance was the factor that has been causing this person to miss these supervised visits. It is quite possible that there is a more convenient and closer place to do it, but the feeling is that the point of it being supervised has been the issue. One thing i cannot forget is that these children are always valuable assets to the person who has custody, i.e. gets to claim them on taxes, helping programs, etc. There are so many reasons I am glad to be out of the mediation business. Situations like this one are part of it.

 

[stealth2]

I'm guessing the lawyer is operating with an abundance of caution to get this episode behind you. As @commentator wrote, "You definitely do not want to take the risk of getting out on your own regarding visitation and then having CPS called in a second (or third or fourth, whatever it would be ) time." You really would be well advised to just suck it up and do it.

@commentator also makes a good point wrt the location of the supervised visitation. Perhaps, @NCPMom , you could look into some alternatives. With Spring coming, there's a local park? Library? McDonald's with a Playplace? Concentrate your energies on creating the most positive situation for your child, while knocking Grandma's objections down. Show the PC that you're cooperative and thinking of the child.