SPARC Forums

Dear socrateaser,

Here are the facts of our case. My 2 children , 10 have been placed in my custody via dcfs. Mom left the children alone for 4 days and was given a service plan which she failed to comply to. She also tested positive for meth and cannibas. This resulted in the children being placed in my custody pending the outcome of the state's (IL) against mom. Mom is adament that she never did drugs that it was her medication that caused the positive drug test although she did admit to  doing it once, but didn't know what it was and on a second occasion accidentaly drank it from someones coffee. She readily admits to only smoking pot to help her sleep. Her 15 year old daught wrote a letter to the judge telling him that she refused to go back home with mom because she is tired of having to be the adult in the house and take care of everyone and not having food, clothes, etc.. Mom has appealed her case (I beleive this failed) among other things. We do have a great atty. Mom recieves 1 supervised visit a week and is continually making things very difficult. Last week she called dcfs on us for neglect which was unfounded, she undermines our athority to the children, etc...  
We were in the process of filing for custody before this incident due to the following; Each child had missed over 35 days of school in one year and both were failing, the mother is constantly moving and changing jobs/shcools/homes,  neglect of feeding, clothing, etc...

My question is this.  The judge that is hearing the states case against her could give us custody if he chose to do so, correct? What is the likelyhood of this?  Mom is also facing criminal charges from the states atty for neglect. How can the outcome of those charges affect us? We have already filed for custody in civil court. If the judge does not give us custody via dcfs is there anything we can do to keep the children from going home while we fight for custody in civil court? What does our civil case look like to you?

Thank you for your input,

Melinda Glenn

The juvenile court judge will probabaly make a temporary custody order in your favor and then refer the matter to the family court for a full custody hearing. Your attorney will inform the juvenile court of the pending custody action and that will be the end of the juvenile court matter.

On your facts, you have so much evidence of the mother acting against the children's interests, that I don't see how you could NOT get primary custody with probably supervised visitation for mom.

PS. In the future, please limit your paragraphs to no more than four (4) sentences. Long paragraphs are very difficult to read quickly (and I read VERY quickly, because of limited time).