The Family Court Project was initiated in 1999 as a cooperative effort between the General Assembly and the Indiana Supreme Court. The purpose of the Project is to develop “common sense” models to better serve children and families in our courts. The initial emphasis of the Family Court Project was to develop models to coordinate families who have multiple cases pending before multiple judges.

Beginning in 2000, three pilot counties developed effective family court models under the administration of the Division of State Court Administration, with guidance from a statewide Family Court Task Force.

In 2002, Phase II of the Family Court Project was extended to six additional counties. Phase III began in 2004 with the selection of eight new family court counties. Phase IV began in January of 2006 with the addition of six new family court counties.

Currently there are twenty-three family court counties. While all projects must include some type of judicial coordination of multiple case families, programming has expanded to include nonadversarial dispute resolution and other programming for high-risk, low-income, and/or pro se families. The original counties remain actively involved in the Project and continue to share ideas and mentor new pilot counties.