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I know here in PA, if the child is going to a private school (which a preschool would be along with not being mandated by the state) then either the parents have to agree or it needs to be paid for by the parent who chooses  it as in the case of one of my friends.  Custodial mother wanted him in a preschool and catholic school later.  Both were shot down by domestics as something that the father had to pay for because it was not a nec expense.  Daycare may be, preschool is not.  School (starting at 1st grade here) is private school is not. I would look into things and see if the same is true where you are.

I don't know the specifics, but I do know that my father's order to pay (to his 2nd wife) was ended by the courts because he was too ill to seak gainful employment.  He was ordered to seek disability and list his minor children....he has yet to do so and that was about 2 years ago...there has been no further action from what I am told (2nd wife is only a few years older than me and tells me a bit more than I need to know...)

Also, I recieve a dependant benifit for my daughter from Social Security "from" her father.  With this in place I can get a small amount (around 12 a week) from her father and an order from Domestic Relations should allow her to be covered under medical assistance from what I have been told by the enforcement officers at Domestics.  They said that the amount that is paid by the government is taken off of what he would "owe" me on a weekly basis...To me, it just never seemed worth it to pursue it as of yet.  

n/m

I am hoping this is an easy one for you.  All parties are in PA but it is a more general question than that.  
Do you know if there may be an example of what a pre-trial statement (to go to a trial not a custody master) should look like somewhere online or can you give me something to go on here?  It seems everywhere we turn we get, "The lawyer files it" or "The lawyer does that"...but we are pro se.  We have done VERY well so far but we are not sure what this should look like (including the custody master telling the opposing side, at our last hearing, that they know they don't want this going to trial because we have a strong case.  He said they needed to sit down and talk to us, but they have been unwilling to date.  This of course is niether here nor there...).  
I am assuming that it needs the header up top with all of the case info...but after that should it be just paragraphs siting attatched evidence?  Should it be more like an outline?  Should it look like the one going to the custody master but more indepth?  
TIA

Edit to add...in the county where this is being heard ALL evidance and purposed witness testomony must be layed out in this pre-trial statement as it would be in a criminal matter.  This is a change that is less than a year old.  They have found their way around the lack of discovery clause in the law, thus our reason for concern regaurding this matter.

Not to jump in, sorry Socrateaser, but her children could be collecting SSDisability dependant benifit without their parent being deceased.  This takes an application being filed in the father's name (which I am sure is already in the works) along with the children's information included.  Some paperwork will have to be filed by each of the mothers (and they will notify you of this) and then the kids will recieve the benifit.  This can be a long process but you would get a lump sum payment when the benifits are approved to cover since the time of application.  Also, does go on long term SSD, he will most likely recieve medical asst and then the children may be elligalbe for it as well (free healthcare isn't always such a bad thing!).  Anyway, HTH and again, sorry to intrude.

I guess I don't understand how to state it then because it is about us getting custody for the child's welfare if that makes sense.  In my mind, if it is not about custody then there is no need to report it as the evaluator can't act of it, she simply evaluates the situation.  Am I wrong?

All parties are in PA.  Temp order was put in place by the custody master.  Home evaluation court ordered through the County Children and Youth offices.  Both parties have met with the evaluator and are awaiting her written recommendations before proceeding to trial or private mediation.  

You may recall that there is an issue of medical neglect in our case in which custodial parent did not act to care for child's dental issues until Children and Youth was involved in the case nor was the child taken to the doctor for over 8 months by custodial parent (again, until children and youth was brought into the equation).  There is also an issue of child not being provided with fitting clothing ect in the custodial parents home (custodial parent has blamed this on lack of cash dispite child support being paid on time).

Children and Youth has apparently ended their investigation, but that is another story, and CP has since stopped taking the child to the doc again.  We have had her there 2x in the past month (05/20 and 06/03) during our limited weekend time.  Both times she had an upper resp infection again.  Custodial parent has not taken her for follow-up visits.

Custodial parent's job was terminated last week.  We do not know all of the details although the place of employment was closed (something about an FDIC violation and custodial parent was the manager).  Custodial parent is doing everything possible to hide this from us.

Child had a dental appt yesterday that was made by the custodial parent.  This was an appt to have some teeth filled which is a pressing issue because ear nose and throat doc will not treat the child until the majority of dental work is taken care of as to not open the child up to more infections (he believes tonsils need to be removed ASAP due to severe scarring and reaccuring infections ect).  Custodial parent didn't advise the non-custodial parent about the appt but we have been in close contact with the dental office.  Appt was missed- no call, no show.

My question?
Would it be appropriate or expected for us to call the evaluator and tell her about the current situation and the things that have happened since she has met with both households?

As mentioned in a previous post, we have a court ordered home evaluation.  We are in PA and Pro Se.  The evaluation is being done by Children and Youth and I don't understand the setup, but I guess we will figure that one out later today as we are hoping the evaluator shows this time.
The evaluator is meeting with each party one time for about 2-4 hours.  We were told that everyone that lives in the household including the child in question needed to be present for the full length of time that she is in our homes.  
The other party has someone "just hanging out with them" as they have trained the child to say.  He sleeps on the couch every night and is the nephew of the new mate.  He is also the fiancee of the director of the childcare center/ private kindergarten that they are sending the child too.  There have been some rumors of this person being associated with some drug use so obviously this situation is a concern to us.
Their in home evaluation was on Monday, and we understand that he was not present.  We have come to this understanding through our discussion with the evaluator last night who mentioned meeting "everyone in their home."

1.  Is there a proper way to bring this up?  Should it be brought up to the evaluator or the judge when we go to court?

2.  Would this invalidate any part of their evaluation?  Or is there something else that this could effect?

Thanks for your imput on the matter.  This situation does not seem to be listed anywhere to find out what to do.  

>
>I think you need to pretend that the evaluator is a victim and
>that you empathize with her difficult schedule because it must
>be so difficult to deal with the many custody battles that she
>oversees. (blah,blah, puke...).
>

Thank you so much for your prompt reply.  This (above) is what we were assuming the best route was.  This is just one nightmare after another!
Thanks again!

We have a court ordered home evaluation to be done.  We paid the cost of the evaluation within 2 days of being contacted by the county Children and Youth office mailing us the letter explaining how to pay it and waiting to hear something.  The evaluator called us a week later to set up an appt to come to our home for the evaluation.
The first appt time that she gave us was excepted although some visitation issues needed to be cleared up before it was set in stone.  She was made aware of the time restrictions and that people had to rearrange work schedules and visitation schedules to make the time possible.  We contacted her numerous times as the plans were layed and set.
The day of the evaluation came.  Everyone was here (although one child missed a class, another child missed a half day of school and my significant other took the day off of work to be here of course)  The child involved in the custody issue was picked up at noon which was outside of normal parenting time (normal parenting time begins at 4pm).  
The evaluator never showed.  We tried calling her numerous times throughout the afternoon and were finally able to reach her at 6pm.  She stated that she forgot that it was that day and thought it was the following day.  She had the court order stating that normal parenting time is only one day a week and EOW.  She was involved in numerous discussions regarding needing to pick up the child earlier and primary custodial parent not wanting an earlier time.
It is now rescheduled for next week and we are hoping that she shows this time.  Also, primary custodial parents appt is now before ours (and everything that we have read states that you have an advantage if you get your story out first, but we have never done this so we could be all wrong).  School and work alterations are being made again but deposits on classes and things are lost.

1)  Do we have any recourse in this situation as work time is missed so only base salery will be paid for a 2nd day and classes that were previously paid for will not be refunded?

2)  Should we be concerned that this woman who appears to be terribly irresponsible is the one determining the "fate" of our case as we understand that her opinion will weigh heavily on the outcome of the case?

3)  We understand that if we have a concern we need to bring it up early on and not after the evaluation is complete, so would it be wise to do this?    The thought is that she would almost have to be given "points" for being willing to comply with this womans whims and mistakes...but I don't know.

I guess the major question is, should we be concerned and is it worth it to try to do something about it???

Thanks for your time and consideration in this matter.