Motion for Order to Show Cause for Contempt
[Full Name], [Plaintiff or Defendant] in the above entitled matter, in pro per, respectfully moves this court that an order issue, citing and summoning [Agency Name] to appear and show cause, if any he has, why he should not be punished for contempt of court for having failed to comply with the provisions of the judgment heretofore entered, such judgment requiring [list requirement - visitation/access to records/manual, etc].
This motion is made on the grounds that [specify grounds with particularity that indicate non-compliance].
WHEREFORE, [plaintiff or defendant] prays for the relief as set forth above and for such other and further relief as the court deems just and proper.
<signature>
[Full Name & Address]
Court Caption] MOTION FOR MORE FREQUENT AND MEANINGFUL VISITATION
[FULL NAME], [relationship to child] of the minor child in the above-entitled matter, in pro per and moves this court for an order granting him/her more frequent and meaningful visitation with his/her minor children, above name. Specifically, [relationship to child] requests:
[List specific visitation requests.] Example:
Visitation to occur at least three times per week and each visit lasting at least three hours.
Visitation to be unsupervised or in the alternative, visitation to be held at a neutral location.
STATEMENT OF FACTS
1. [List what the visitation arrangement is now and any attempt made to get CPS to voluntarily increase the amount and duration of visits. You should also state attempts to cooperate with CPS demands, such as completion of parent training classes, etc.]
GROUNDS FOR MOTION
1. [Optional] Frequency of visitation has been found to correlate closely with the likelihood of reunification. (Attach these secondary sources as footnotes.)
2. [Set forth additional grounds for the motion as needed.] 2. Attempts at voluntary increase in visitation have failed. Although social workers offered no basis, they summarily denied requests for an increase in visitation, whether supervised or unsupervised.
3. Frequent and meaningful visitation is in the best interests of the child(ren).
WHEREFORE, the respondent prays for an order directing [CPS agency] to provide frequent and meaningful visitation and that such visitation commence immediately.
Respectfully Submitted, ___________________________________
[Full Name], [Relationship to Child]
[Address]
[Phone]
Attach Certificate of Service and Notice of Hearing.
Secondary Sources supporting frequent visitation
[1][1] National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges. (2000). MAKING REASONABLE EFFORTS: Steps for Keeping Families Together. pg 90. New York: Author. Visitation has been recognized as a critically important service in facilitating reunification of children who have been placed in foster care, whether on an emergency or long-term basis. Frequency of visitation has been found to correlate closely with the likelihood of a child’s return home. Milner,J.L. (1987). An ecological perspective on duration of foster care. Child-Welfare. 66(2): 113-23, Mar./Apr. 1987. Findings revealed that the child's visiting relationship with family members while in foster care was the strongest predictor of duration of foster care; the agency's activities with the child's parents in turn accounted for the greatest variation in the quality and quantity of visiting. Extended foster care was highly correlated with multi-problem families and families with a high degree of isolation. Social stressors on the family, support systems available to the family, agency responsiveness to the child and parents, and characteristics of the families were found to act as mediators between the child-parent visiting and duration of foster care. The ecological model as a context for child welfare was supported. McMurtry, S.L. Gwat-Yong L., Lie, G. Y. (1992). Differential exit rates of minority children in foster care. Social-Work-Research-and-Abstracts. 28(1): 42-48, Mar. 1992. Results show that children did not differ across ethnic groups on rates of exit into adoption or outcome such as emancipation or placement with relatives. The major difference was among children who returned home, which occurred at only half the rate for black children as for white children. Variables such as age, presence of a disability, and visitation by parents also were found to differentially affect rates of various exits. Fahlberg, V. (1991) A child's journey through placement. Indianapolis, IN: Perspectives Press. Siblings should be placed together, the author reports, and their parents allowed to visit the children frequently to maintain the bond between parents and their children. Knitzer, J., Allen, M. L. & McGowan, B. (1978) Children without homes. Washington DC: Children's Defense Fund Pelton (1989, 61) cites these authors when he states: "Agencies have discouraged visitation by having no written policies on it for their caseworkers, by not asking parents to plan for regular visits, by severely restricting the time and place of visits, by insisting that the caseworker be present, and by failing to provide funds for transportation." Lawder, E. A.; Poulin, J.E. & Andrews, R.G. (1986) A study of 185 foster children 5 years after placement. Child-Welfare. 65(3): 241-51."THE STRONGEST PREDICTOR OF WHETHER A CHILD RETURNED TO THE BIOLOGICAL FAMILY OR REMAINED IN FOSTER CARE WAS THE FREQUENCY OF VISITATION BY FAMILY MEMBERS." A study of 185 children, five years after their placement in foster care, examined those variables that affect the length of time in placement, as well as the final disposition of cases. It found that of these children, 113 were discharged to members of their biological families, 29 were adopted, and 33 were still in foster care after five years, six were transferred to other agencies, and four were classified as "other." Thus, almost 77 percent of the children who were placed in foster care did not remain in care for a long period of time. Eighty-two of the 113 children who returned to their biological families did so within one year's time. The strongest predictor of whether a child returned to the biological family or remained in foster care was the frequency of visitation by family members. A significant relationship emerged between the dispositional status of the child and placement because of neglect, family crisis, parental mental health problems, parental age, and the number of behavioral problems of the child. Overall, these predictor variables accounted for 0.49 percent of the variance in the children's status after five years. Marsh, P. (1988). Parental access to children in care—the research messages. Children-and-Society. 1(1): 71-80, Spring 1987. A significant number of children in care have parental access limited either deliberately or inadvertently, without professional or legal justification, and the result of this is that contact between parents and children withers, and may be reduced to nothing. A study examines the reasons for and the prevalence of this phenomenon, as well as its significance. The study concludes that a major change is required in agencies' policies for children in care: parental access to children in care is too difficult and too infrequent, and links between family members are unnecessarily and wrongly neglected. The question of maintaining links should be in every social worker's mind at entry to care and in every foster parent's and residential worker's thereafter, and it should be a prominent issue when childcare cases are reviewed. Grigsby, R.K (1994). Maintaining attachment relationships among children in foster care. Families-in-Society. 75(5): 269-76. Frequent, regular parent-child visitation of children in foster care is crucial in maintaining the attachment relationship of the parent and child. Further, the parent-child attachment concept is crucial for permanency planning because it is the rationale behind the goal of providing children with a stable and continuous relationship with the parent or another caretaker, if that child cannot return to the care of the parent. In order to ascertain whether protective services workers recognize and emphasize the importance of maintaining parent-child or other attachment relationships, the author studied closed case records of children who had experienced foster-care placement. Results are discussed in the context of social-attachment theory. McWey, L. (2000). I promise to act better if you let me see my family: attachment theory and foster care visitation. Journal-of-Family-Social-Work. 5(1): 91-105. For children in foster care, continued contact with biological parents may have significant implications. This article seeks to synthesize literature examining attachment theory and visitation between children in foster care and their parents. The results of the research synthesis indicate that although the exploration of attachment theory began over 40 years ago, the questions regarding the implications of foster care visitation and attachment continuation surprisingly remain unanswered. Leathers, S.J. (2000). Behavioral disturbance among foster children: the role of detachment from caregivers and community. Institutions, 36 (3). This study explored how experiences in substitute care may be related to the development of behavioral disturbance among young adolescents in non-relative foster care. A model was defined in which placement movement, inconsistent parental visitation, group placement, and sibling separation were hypothesized to weaken caregiver attachments and other informal social controls provided by involvement in community institutions such as schools and churches. Through weakened attachments and community involvement, these experiences in care were expected to indirectly influence behavioral disturbance. This model was tested in a random sample of 199 urban foster children. White, M., Albers, E., & Bitonti, C. (1996). Factors in length of foster care: worker activities and parent-child visitation. Journal-of-Sociology-and-Social-Welfare. 23(2): 75-84. This is an exploratory case study investigating factors potentially related to length of foster care placements in a small western state. Findings of earlier researchers are supported. More frequent visits by natural parents are associated with shorter foster care placements. Hess, P. (1988). Case and context: Determinants of planned visit frequency in foster family care. Child-Welfare. 67(4): 311-26. Experience and research have established beyond any further question that parental visiting of placed children is essential to the resolution of the function of placement in each family's problem. Parental visiting loses much of its value as a crucial treatment instrument, however, if it is not used flexibly in a carefully and continuously planned process. A study examined complex practice decision-making, using detailed qualitative information based on personal interviews with 15 caseworkers at five agencies. Data collected included caseworker characteristics, agency visiting policy and practice, what caseworkers consider in developing visiting plans, and caseworkers' attitudes and experiences concerning visiting and visit planning. The findings strongly support the development of policies that establish minimum standards for visiting plan arrangements. Hess,Peg M. (1987). What caseworkers consider in developing visiting plans for children in foster care. Social Work Abstracts, 23 (3). A study identified caseworker considerations in the development of visiting plans for children in foster care. A research design providing for collection of detailed qualitative data was used. Interviews were conducted with three caseworkers selected from each of five agencies located in two states. Respondents had been employed in child welfare a mean of 5.1 years. The sample included MSWs, BSWs, and non-social work majors. Eight categories of considerations emerged: (1) recommendations of others, including courts; (2) agency policy and norms; (3) child-related considerations, including safety; (4) parent-related considerations; (5) the nature of the parent-child relationship; (6) the case goal, parent's progress toward case goal, and case phase; (7) placement-related considerations; and (8) agency resources. Among the themes that emerged were the complexity of the considerations identified, the need for caseworkers to balance conflicting considerations, the constancy of risk, the relevance of the perceived visit purposes to caseworker planning, and the potential influence of the caseworker's experiences on visit planning. Findings indicate that visits are a key component in family assessment, case planning, and treatment and support the development of minimum standards for visiting arrangements. Study of the actual visiting situation should be a priority. Proch,K. & Howard, J.A. (1986). Parental visiting of children in foster care. Social-Work. 31(3): 178-81. A study that reviewed the case records of 256 randomly selected children in foster care in Illinois examined the relationship between agency practices and patterns of parental visiting. Findings revealed a strong connection between plans to visit and actual patterns of visits. Knowledge of and policy regarding visitation were not fully integrated into current child welfare practice. Proch, K & Howard, J. (1984). Parental visiting in foster care: law and practice. Child-Welfare. 63(2): 139-47. Parental visiting of children in foster care is a key element in both the reunification of families and the termination of parental rights. Two uses of visiting must be balanced, and state statutes should allow termination based on failure to visit but require agencies to promote visiting. It is suggested that agencies review their practices to determine if they discourage meaningful visits.