Rights Unjustly Taken Away

[skymagnolia]

Hello all, I am the wife of an amazing man who I have two beautiful children with and we are getting ready to go through the adoption process for him to legally adopt my little girl.  The only thing we are missing in this picture is time with his amazing little boys ages 5 and 7 (almost 6 and .  In 2008 him and his wife were officially divorced and in the divorce decree it was decided that visitation would be as agreed upon between the two of them and that all major decisions would be made by both of them.  In March of 2009 he received paperwork stating that the state of Colorado had custody of the boys and that he had to prove he was not neglecting or harming the children.  She had them taken away because of Meth use.  The State of Colorado agreed that he was not neglecting or harming the children but refused to allow him to have his children.  Long story short on this, she has gotten full custody of the boys back.  During this time, he had a court appointed attorney who was suppose to be keeping in contact with him, during the whole time, over a year, he heard from her twice, once to say do you know whats going on and then the final time to say well since you haven't bothered to be a part of all of this, I still need to ask if you have a problem with her getting custody of the boys back this was in 2010. In March of this year Lucas received a court order stating that since he did not do what the court order of him during his exwifes issue, he has had all visitation and rights taken away from him.  This makes no sense to me at all.  So now we are trying to file all the paperwork necessary to try and get custody and visitation back but we have no clue where to start and do not have the money to pay an attorney to help us and the last court appointed attorney is the one who got us here.  Please help.  These little boys are amazing and need their father in their lives and she knew back in November of 2010 that his rights were taken but just played like she might let us have them for christmas and summer then we got the papers.

Thank You In Advance,
Jeara

[ocean]

He needs to go down to that family court with his license and ask to see the file. He can pay for copies too and see exactly what went on and what was the last decision.
The last set of papers you just got, what exactly does it say?

[skymagnolia]

* The Court Allocates sole decision making rights and responsibilities with respect to the children to the respondent mother.
*  As to parenting time, the respondent father, shall have no parenting time and may file a motion with the court to request visitation. Respondent father did not comply with treatment plan during the pendecy of this action.


So what do we actually need to file?  It says to file in the domestic court where the original divorce decree was put into place but I don't know what forms I need to file for this?  Thank you for replying.  Its hard to make it there, we are 300 miles away from the court house that this is all done through.
Jeara

[ocean]

Look online and see if her courthouse has the forms online. Many do now..
It would be modification to visitation papers BUT you really need to find out what they wanted him to do. There is more to this story if they wanted him to jump through hoops. Was he ever arrested? drugs? drinking? If so, take classes (parenting class by you, AA meetings....whatever the issues were). While you wait for a court date you can start jumping through those hoops. You may nicely call the person from CPS that was in charge of the case and ask what hoops the court is talking about because you want to start seeing child and will do whatever it takes.

This will be hard to do:
You are fighting against CPS. If case is closed then maybe a little easier just dealing with courts but it is on record that he has some issues.
You are very far away and they will prob want some type of supervised visits at beginning and he will have to travel for those visits.

[skymagnolia]

Curious if anyone knows why when it was her who lost the children, they were already divorced at the time and living 300 miles apart from each other, can they even hold it against him when he did absolutely nothing to have the children taken away in the first place?

[Kitty C.]

The court made it plain that he didn't get parenting time because he didn't do what they asked of him.  Why they allowed the BM to have custody is anyone's guess......but it's not uncommon for family courts to give custody to drug-addicted, law-breaking parents.....it's part of what's wrong with our family court system as a whole.

[skymagnolia]

Right I get that part of it and this whole thing sucks.  She actually lost them twice, she got them back in her care with the state still having custody and then had a dirty drug test and lost them, but now she has them free and clear of the state.  But, what I don't understand is that they were not married any more, he had absolutely nothing to do with her losing the kids in the first place, so how does he end up being the one who gets punished in this whole thing?  I am just so mad, sad, confused and ugh.  It is all sucky, because those poor little boys when he gets to talk to him keep asking him when they get to come to our house???  What do you say to them?  Sorry, just going on and on.  It is just nice to know that there are others out there who understand my frustration.

[tigger]

Something's missing here.  He was divorced in 2008.  So the boys were roughly 4 and 5. 

• What kind of parenting time did he have from 2008 up until 2010 when CPS took them away? 
  
• Was he aware of what the mom was doing prior to losing the boys? 
  
• Why didn't he immediately petition the courts to have custody of them rather than they going into (I presume) foster care? 
  
• What requirements did he fail to complete during the mother's time away from the boys and why didn't he do them? 

We'll be better able to assist you when we have a clear idea of the whole picture.

[skymagnolia]

• What kind of parenting time did he have from 2008 up until 2010 when CPS took them away?
  - He was divorced in Dec 2008 the visitation was set up that when they could agree upon it visitation was to happen.  We did not have a chance to have any visits with them.  They were actually taken from their mom in February of 2009 and he did not learn about it till March of 2009 when the paperwork came from the court saying there was a hearing.  When they were taken she was asked my CPS if there was ANYONE who could take the boys and she said NO and they said you understand they will be going into foster care, so is there anyone who could take them and she said NO again.
  
  
• Was he aware of what the mom was doing prior to losing the boys?
  - No he had no idea what was going on in the home prior to her losing the boys, had he known they would not have been there. 
  
  
  
• Why didn't he immediately petition the courts to have custody of them rather than they going into (I presume) foster care?
  - He went to court on the date specified and they said that he would not be getting the children in his care, they told us that as long as she followed the program that they would lay out for her, that she would eventually get the boys back and they didn't want them to be use to their dads house and then be taken away.  Which makes absolutely no sense to me at all, none of this does actually. 
  
  
  
• What requirements did he fail to complete during the mother's time away from the boys and why didn't he do them?
  - We have no idea what the requirements were.  On that first court date he was appointed an attorney.  She only contacted us twice, once to say did you know the boys were taken out of her care again?  And the last time in November of 2010 to say do you have a problem with her receiving full custody back?  Then topped her message of with like you really care because you didn't participate in anything anyways.  I politely said to her, what do you mean participated in anything?  You are his attorney and this is only the second time that we have even heard from you since this all started?  And alls she said but anyways......
  
  
  
  
  Does that answer the questions well enough for you?  Let me know if there is more information I can provide.  We live 300 miles from her.

[ocean]

Call the family court and see if you can get copies of the file by mail.

File for modification to visitation with the reason that "father recently got court decision in mail but was never notified to be at any hearings. Father requests that a formal visitation schedule be set up with the courts".
Then take is from there...a hearing will be set up...and he will have a chance to see what they are talking about and to see if they are willing to give him back visitation rights.

BUT:
When was the last time he saw the children?? They will not just give them to you for a weekend until they get to know him again. He can ask for few visits in her town, not overnight so they can get reacquainted again. Ask for phone time to talk to kids (exact day of the week and time), if they have a computer- skype time (same-name the day of the week and time she will have kids at computer). The first visit can be at a fast food place or park for a few hours. Then the next time, a full saturday, then the next time both days on the weekend, then go back to your town for a visits. Depending on how the kids react it can be a longer time.

From now on...look at your paperwork. Find your file number, this number is used anytime either you or ex file something. Watch the online site weekly (if not daily) and see if anything is going on with the case.