Utah Code 30-3-32: Parent-Time — Intent — Policy — Definitions1. It is the intent of the Legislature to promote parent-time at a level consistent with all parties’ interests. (c) “Extended parent-time” means a period of parent-time other than a weekend, holiday as provided in Subsections 30-3-35(2)(f) and (2)(g), religious holidays as provided in Subsections 30-3-33(3) and (17), and “Christmas school vacation.” Children and Separation or DivorceWhen parents separate or get a divorce, their children are affected in many different ways. Get information to help you understand what your children may be going through so you can help them cope with your separation. You know your children best and you can use the information provided here to help them and come up with a parenting plan that is in their best interests. Parenting PlansA parenting plan, also called a “custody and visitation agreement” or a “time-share plan,” is the parent’s written agreement about how much time the child will spend with each parent, and how the parents will make decisions about the child’s welfare and education. Learn what you should think about when deciding on a parenting plan that is in the best interests of your child, what should be in your parenting plan, and how to write up your parenting plan. Children are entitled to financial and emotional support from both parents. In 2011, 23.4 million children under the age of 21 lived with just one parent and in 2014; approximately 40 percent of births were to unmarried mothers. While many states allow for child support to be adjusted based on the amount of time each parent spends with the child, most child support orders established by the public child support system do not include a corresponding parenting time order or arrangement. In fact, nearly 7 of 10 parents involved with the public child support program do not have an official parenting time order. The primary reason for this disconnect is that Title IV-D of the Social Security Act, which governs the public child support enforcement system, does not allow expenditure of federal funds for the establishment or negotiation of parenting time arrangements. With the passage of the Preventing Sex Trafficking and Strengthening Families Act of 2014 (PL113-183) Congress specifically addressed the issue of parenting time with the following Findings and Sense of Congress (§303): • the separation of a child from a parent does not end the financial or other responsibilities of the parent toward the child, and The Act also expresses the sense of the Congress that: Married vs. Unmarried ParentsWhen a married couple is ending their relationship, the state is generally responsible for formalizing the dissolution of that relationship. When a married couple with children gets divorced, state family law statutes have procedures for determining child support and parenting time as part of a unified court process. States may require mediation, parent education classes, or development of specific parenting plans as part of the divorce process all based upon the presumption that both the mother and the father will continue to have ongoing contact and time with their children. In general, only in unusual or extreme situations (e.g. abuse or neglect, domestic violence) is the presumption of ongoing contact overcome. Conversely, unmarried parents do not require the state to end their relationship. And unlike divorcing couples, state family law varies widely in its presumptions related to the parenting rights of unmarried fathers. Unmarried parents needing assistance with paternity establishment and child support can, at little or no cost, receive assistance from the state child support agency, but there is no similar resource available to assist unmarried parents with establishing parenting time arrangements. In addition, unmarried parents generally must navigate an entirely different court process than the one through which they received a child support order. This can be costly, confusing and time consuming. The different family law processes specific to unmarried parents frequently begin at birth. Married fathers are automatically presumed to be the child’s father while unmarried fathers must sign a voluntary acknowledgement of paternity or prove their legal standing as a father some other way. In addition, state laws give married fathers equal custodial and decision-making rights as mothers (because it is assumed that married parents live together). This is not the case with unmarried parents. In fact, in 14 states (Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Wisconsin), when a child is born to unmarried parents, even though the father signs a paternity acknowledgment form, the mom is automatically given sole custody. In the other 36 states, unmarried fathers who sign a paternity acknowledgment form are given the same legal presumptions to custody as married fathers. Many states have attempted to address the disparate treatment of unmarried fathers by granting those fathers, once they have legally established paternity, with similar rights and responsibilities as married fathers. Most recently, Nevada enacted 2015 Assembly Bill 263 which specifically expands the applicability of the custody and visitation laws to all children regardless of whether they were born to parents who were married or unmarried. The bill defaults the custody arrangement to joint legal and physical custody until or unless a court orders otherwise. State PoliciesStates that address child support and parenting time together do so in various ways. The majority of states provide an adjustment in their child support guidelines for parenting time. Some states provide limited assistance to parents interested in parenting time orders through court-based self-help services or family law facilitators, and a few states provide methods for addressing both child support and parenting time in the same order, or at the same time. Child Support Guideline Adjustments for Parenting TimeApproximately 36 states and D.C. have an adjustment in the child support guidelines for parenting time. This means that if the parents have established a parenting time order, the amount of time that each parent spends with the child will impact the amount of child support he or she pays or receives. Many jurisdictions will allow parents to informally agree on the amount of time the child spends with each parent to facilitate determination of child support obligations, but these informal agreements are not legally enforceable orders. In Utah, there are minimum schedules for parenting time based on whether the child is under 5 years of age or between the ages of 5 and 18 As with most parenting-time laws, these schedules are applicable in the case of divorce, and do not necessarily apply to unmarried parents. These minimum parenting time schedules have the potential to provide the type of consistency that the Texas standard possession order affords parents, allowing them to rely on predictable parent-time orders if they are not able to come up with an agreement otherwise. During the 2015 legislative session, Utah enacted an optional schedule for parenting-time for children 5 to 18 years of age and includes a provision for child support adjustments based on this schedule. The bill states that any child support calculation should be consistent with the rules regarding joint physical custody in the child support guidelines. Promote Parenting TimeSome states, through federal grants, have developed resources to address child support and parenting time issues simultaneously. The federal Office of Child Support Enforcement (OCSE) administers an Access and Visitation program which provides total pool of $10 million in formula grants to states each year. The grants are designed to facilitate noncustodial parents’ access to and visitation with their children. States are permitted to use the grant funds for: Utah Divorce LawyerWhen you need a Utah Divorce Lawyer, please call Ascent Law LLC for your free consultation (801) 676-5506. We want to help you.
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