This Situation Happens Often in Child Custody Matters When DHS Is Involved
Video Transcribed: What do you do when DHS tells you, you can’t send your kids back to their other parent because they’re in a threat of harm, or danger.
And if you do, they’re going to take them. But, at the same time, there’s an order with the court and the court is saying, you have to send them back?
Hello, my name is Ryan Cannonie, I’m an CPS Defense Lawyer with the CPS Investigation Defense Law office. And the situation I’ve just described is one that happens pretty often in child custody matters when you have DHS involved, but only looking at one parent.
So, one parent is deemed unsafe. The other parent is deemed safe. And so, DHS will come in and say, “Look, you can have the kids. But if they go back over, we’re going to have to get back involved, do a deprived case.
You will be not protecting them from the threat of harm.” But you have this court order saying that they’re supposed to be back in the other parent’s custody. What do you do?
Well, you go to an attorney and ask them to represent you. And then, after you get that attorney representation, that attorney will file a motion for modification.
Now, a motion for modification when it pertains to child custody, is you going in and, especially if you have an Oklahoma DHS report on your side saying the other parent is unsafe, you’re asking the court to modify the original custody agreement, or subsequent custody agreements, and change it so that you can get whatever you’re asking for.
In this situation, you’d be asking for sole custody, or you would be asking for only supervised visitation with the other parent, something of that nature.
And then, the court will make a determination based on a hearing, hearing evidence, or if there’s an agreement between you and the other party of what’ll happen.
This is pretty complicated. And I’ve seen where people have filed these on their own. It doesn’t work out that well because they don’t really know what all to put in there. They don’t really know what’s going to happen when they get to court.
They don’t know how to subpoena witnesses. So, this causes a lot of problems for people because they’re whole world is getting their kids back, but they don’t know how to navigate in the legal world.
Please give an Oklahoma DHS attorney a call and we can help you with your legal matters.