What is the Family Court Project?

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.

Family Court Concept

Indiana's Family Court Project is not just about models of court structure and programming; it is a concept for dealing with children and families in the court system. The family court concept is based on the significance of family in our culture and our legal system. It recognizes the unique stresses and safety issues in family litigation, the role of the family in affecting individual behavior, and the particularized need for timeliness and consistency in judicial rulings involving children. It acknowledges the need to involve the whole family in addressing delinquency, child endangerment, and other safety issues.

The family court concept maintains that case coordination is often needed to avoid uninformed, inconsistent or delayed rulings for families with multiple cases in the court system. The family court concept encourages parties and attorneys to fully disclose information about the family's legal cases in order to obtain a complete and long-lasting resolution to the family's situation. The concept promotes cooperation between the courts in referring, coordinating, and/or providing services to indigent and at-risk families.

The family court concept emphasizes a holistic and non-adversarial approach to problem solving. It involves an open, common sense, and helping approach to the resolution of legal issues affecting children and families, within the parameters of due process of the law.

Programming Options

Coordination of Multiple-Case Families. The core component of the Family Court Project is coordination of multiple cases involving the same family. Indiana 's current judicial system often does not deal with the family as a whole. Instead, the legal problems of the family are separated and compartmentalized for judicial resolution, sometimes before two or three different judges. Take for example the family who enters the judicial system with a wide variety of problems:

The oldest child is in a youth shelter based on acts of delinquency related to substance abuse, father and mother are involved in a post-divorce visitation dispute and child support contempt proceeding, father is being sentenced for driving while intoxicated, mother recently obtained a protective order against father, the prosecutor has initiated a paternity proceeding against mother's live-in boyfriend regarding her youngest child, and the boyfriend's biological children are the subject of a Child In Need of Services (CHINS) neglect case.

Dealing with each of these matters as a separate and independent case may result in uninformed decision-making, conflicting orders, and fragmented service delivery. The safety of family members and children may be at risk.

Multiple-case coordination can take many forms. Some counties have chosen a One Judge-One Family model, in which all of a family's related cases are bundled together and heard by the same judge. Other counties may bundle multiple cases together for a limited time and return the cases to the original court upon resolution. Still other counties retain each case in the original court, but devise a system to share information among the courts in order to avoid inconsistent orders. The type of case coordination or information sharing your project uses will depend on the structure and needs of your individual courts. Every family court project must screen for and provide some type of coordination and/or information sharing for multiple case families.

Affordable Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR). Families can benefit from affordable services that enable them to resolve their own disputes with the assistance of a neutral professional, and to take increased responsibility and ownership in the result. ADR programming can take several forms, including (1) mediation, which uses a registered mediator to help parties resolve pending cases in accordance with the ADR Rules, and (2) facilitation, a more flexible model that uses a “neutral” to help parties reach resolution but which is not subject to the ADR Rules. Some counties are beginning to provide parenting coordination, which is used to help high conflict families devise and comply with parenting time plans. If your county does not have an existing ADR Plan under IC 33-23-6, the family court is encouraged to consider initiating one if it is consistent with your programming goals. The Division of State Court Administration offers assistance to counties wishing to develop an ADR Plan.

Service Referral and Service Coordination. Many families need assistance locating affordable services, such as counseling, substance abuse treatment, and supervised visitation, to name a few. This is particularly true for families in custody and domestic violence cases who are not eligible for services through the Department of Child Services or other community safety nets. Families with mental health or other chronic conditions need greater assistance to understand and comply with court orders essential to the safety of their children. Some family court projects use family court personnel to refer families to necessary services. Depending upon the program and the party's needs, service referral may include a wide range of services, including an intake meeting with family members to discuss needs, explain orders, and help determine the type of needed service and available options or monitoring to ensure that court ordered services are obtained.

Assistance for Families Without Attorneys. Increasing numbers of pro se parties need assistance in filing appropriate pleadings and presenting needed documentation to the court in family law cases. Some counties have chosen to coordinate a volunteer pro se help desk or legal clinic to answer basic legal questions and help pro se litigants obtain access to and complete basic pleading forms.

Other Programming. Other programming may include a family focus in special needs areas such as truancy, special services for children at risk of delinquency, or drug court programming which addresses the needs of adults and/or children in CHINS, divorce, or paternity cases.

Family Court Rules

The Supreme Court issued four Family Court Rules in July 2001 for the exclusive use of the family courts. The Rules focus on coordination and information sharing for multiple cases involving the same family members and related issues. The Rules address jurisdiction, concurrent hearings, judicial notice, change of judge, and confidentiality. Each family court project may choose which if any of the Rules it wants to adopt. View the Family Court Rules.

Funding

Legislature and Court Improvement Program (CIP). The Family Court Project began with an annual appropriation of $200,000 per year from the Indiana Legislature. This appropriation was expanded. The legislative funding level for the current two-year biennium is $500,000. Additionally, the Family Court Project typically has received federal Court Improvement Program grants for pilot family court counties with family focused programming for child abuse and neglect cases.

The bulk of the family court funding is distributed each year to the new pilot counties as seed grants for a two-year period. All of the family court counties have received transition grants in the years following their seed grants to help them transition to permanent local resources. From the inception of the Family Court Project through 2007, $1,625,000 has been distributed directly to family court counties.

Local funding. It has always been the intention of the Family Court Project that pilot counties would transition within a reasonable time from seed funding to local funding. Family Court counties are directed to create local funding sources and/or reallocate existing court resources and positions.

A significant source of revenue for family courts is community funding and collaboration. Some family courts entered into collaborative grants or resource sharing agreements with local mental health providers, the Department of Child Services, and youth service bureaus. Counties may also use sliding fee scales to determine appropriate party reimbursement rates for service delivery. Many counties have obtained local government funding through court or probation budgets for ongoing program maintenance.

Family Court Report Fall 2003

An 80-page report on programming, statistics, funding, challenges, and recommendations for the Family Court Project was published in January 2004. View the Family Court Report online.