Providing legal assistance to needy families and encouraging the formation and maintenance of two-parent families are goals of West Virginia’s family court system. In September, our family court system learned that a federal Department of Health and Human Services program called TANF, which stands for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, is awarding our family courts over $1.3 million this fiscal year to support these goals.

      Our court system estimates that 60 percent of all West Virginia litigants are indigent. Some family law masters estimate that as many as 90-95 percent of family court litigants fall below the poverty level.

      In 1999, the West Virginia Legislature required that family courts statewide sponsor parent education and mediation programs. Previously, these programs had been voluntary. Our court system had encouraged the passage of this requirement. Based on our experience with our pilot parent education and mediation projects, we knew that parent education and mediation improved parents’ ability to work cooperatively on parenting their children.

      We were, however, concerned about how we could fund parent education and mediation programs statewide because of the high number of impoverished family court litigants. Indigent parents do not have to pay for parent education or mediation under the law. Other parents pay no more than $25 to participate in a parent education program and pay for mediation on a sliding scale based on ability to pay. Although we are grateful to the lawyers, social workers and others who have volunteered as mediators for indigent parents, we knew we could not expect volunteer mediators to meet our needs permanently.

      Our TANF grant will provide funding for outside mediators to conduct mediation sessions for indigent parents. Each family law master will be able to refer three sets of indigent parents a month to meditation. We will reimburse mediators at a rate of $45 an hour and estimate that each mediation will take from three-to-six hours.

      If parents have attended mediation and still cannot agree on a parenting plan, the family law master should refer the family to a custody evaluator. The custody evaluator, generally a trained mental health professional or a lawyer, assists the law master in determining the maximum amount of shared parenting time that each parent may safely spend with his or her child. Our TANF grant will allow family law masters to increase the number of cases they can refer to custody evaluators. Each family law master will be able to refer two sets of indigent parents a month to a custody evaluator. The rate of reimbursement for an outside custody evaluation is $750.

      West Virginia has had great success with parent education programs, however we do not have one uniform statewide parent education program or uniform materials unique to West Virginia. Our family court system will use the federal grant to establish an original parent education program unique to West Virginia and sponsor statewide training conferences for parent educators and others involved in family court programs. Parents also can expect to see new explanatory booklets on the divorce process.

      As a Chief Justice, I am very excited about how our family court system will use these federal funds to directly work with children. We are going to create a special book for children on the divorce process, and implement a children’s education program in three pilot counties. Our children’s education program will provide age specific sessions for children 4-17 years of age whose parents are separating. We also will select one pilot county courthouse to offer our first "children’s waiting room." The room will be decorated in a children’s theme. The family court will not staff the room or provide day care, but the room will provide a friendly, comforting environment for children who are required to be in the courthouse.

      Our family court system’s overall goal of providing the right services to help parents and children at the most difficult time in their lives is now much more attainable because of our TANF grant. Whether you are directly involved in the family court system or are simply a concerned citizen, you should see much positive change in our family court system this year.

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