Child Custody

If a family breaks up due to divorce or some other circumstance then decisions need to be made about the living situations of the children that are involved. Usually there are rules put in place to have shared custody and both parents can share the child in order to spend time with them equally. Sometimes there are circumstances that one parent may not be allowed to see their children because they are unfit to take care of them on their own. When this happens there are court proceedings in order to determine which parent gets to have custody of the children and if there are to be any visitation by the parent under suspicion. It is all about the best interests of the child when these cases come up. The court systems are always looking to keep that foremost in their minds.

There are many things that an investigator can help a party look into in order to make sure that the court can get all the facts in order to make the proper decision in a case. These court battles are usually quite nasty and both parents tend to throw around a lot of terrible accusations at each other in order to make the court give them the benefit of the doubt. This is why it is important to know all the facts. An investigator can help find records that can help corroborate any of these wild accusations to make sure they are for real. They can also interview any witnesses that may have seen or known of these issues in action.

There are a few different types of physical custody in today’s system. There is joint custody, and sole physical custody, split custody, alternating custody, third party custody, and bird’s nest custody. Third party custody is one of the easiest to explain because in this case both parents are found not fit to take care of and raise a child or children and it is placed in the custody of a third party, usually a relative or a foster parent. Sole physical custody is the case where one parent is found unfit to take care of their child so only one parent has full custody and the other parent may or may not even get visitation in some cases. The other types of custody all involve some sort of shared custody agreement. In true joint custody both parents have custody of the children but they may share the children at different times splitting the time they see each parent. In split custody some children may go to one parent and other children will go to the other parent. Alternating custody is where there will be set weeks or months where one parent has custody and then it will then switch to the other parent for that period of time. Finally bird’s nest custody involves where the child or children will stay in the same home and the parents will occupy the same home at different times in order to take care of the child in order to reduce the shock on them from moving around all the time.