Documentation

By Lisa Chaffin

The first advise I was given was to DOCUMENT!! There are many approaches to how you actually do your documentation. Some say it can be type written by dates, some say email it to yourself every day with date and time stamp, some say only handwritten ones will be accepted that are part of a bound book with no pages missing. This depends on your state law and your lawyer can help you with this. Some will say your journal cannot be given to your judge. Some lawyer can get your journal in or at very least you can refer to it when in court testifying. Either way the journal is a vital part of keeping the child safe.

Ok, you documented and you are faced with court. Now what do you do? Realistically, a judge probably won’t read your whole documentation folder. Actually your lawyer probably won’t either. So you have to spoon feed them bits and pieces of information that are of value to your case. Why are you going to court? Guardianship hearing, visitation hearing, contempt of court, termination of guardianship, termination of bio’s rights. Depending on which is the case if you use this simple method you will be very organized with your facts and answers.

I used what I called “one sheets” to back up what was in the journal. I listed visitations, missed opportunity visitations, child support payments, and a point by point history of each bio (depending on which one I was going to court for). These were detailed by dates, times and information and backed up by documentation.

Another sound piece of advise as our GAL told us, you don’t have to answer your phone. Let your answering machine pick it up. You will be surprised what the messages your bios leave on the machine and it is perfectly legal since they know they are being recorded. My voice mail time and date stamped the messages if I left them on there for a week. I always transcribed the information into my journal. I used the speakerphone to record them on to cassette tape.

I did a calendar from court hearing to court hearing. I listed every contact either by person or phone. This covered both bios as well as the other paternal grandmother. I listed GAL conferences and counseling appointments. I color-coded for easy reference. Anything bad that happened ie. Missed visitations, arguments, or weeks of no contacts I always-used RED CAP LETTERS. If something really significant happened on a specific date, I gave the page number to correspond to the journal.

I kept everything that pertained to my grand from her bios. Every written correspondence, note, email, card or letter was included in my documentation. I kept letters from preschool, Sunday school teacher, and dance teacher. Sample preschool work. I kept all her medical information in my documentation folder. Anything we did on the behalf of our grandchild i.e. Getting her birth certificate straightened out.

Another thing we did was write a letter to the judge (but it didn’t address the judge) for the reasoning behind what we were going to court for. For visitation hearing, it was a point-by-point reason why visitation shouldn’t be increased. Reasoning, bio wasn’t taking the opportunity for given visits, asked bio to watch child and refused and gave reason, etc. This was based on factual information not our feelings. For our contempt of court hearing, we presented why we were not in contempt of court. This is normally a one to two page letter listing your reasoning in a factual point by point format.

A photo collage of your grand doing happy things with and without you. The judge needs to see whose life he/she is deciding.

I used a 6-sided classification folder that you can get at any office supply store. It has the prongs at the top for 2-hole punch.
How I organized the folder:
1st side-Court notice and on top the letter.
2nd side-Letters from teachers and on top the photo collage
3rd side, Child support history and copies of the check stubs. Also notice from preschool the amounts that we paid. A detail summary of what we spent on the child. Dance lessons, gymnastics receipts etc.
4th side- Medical information. Records of office visits, rx’s, and any money we paid for medical care.
5th side- Information from the bios. Cards, letters, picture of gifts with child. On top a list of visitations and canceled visitations with just the facts referring page numbers in journal.
6th side-the detailed journal with page numbers for reference. On top of that the calendar.

Everything was labeled with little labels for easy reference to the pages including the months in the journal. Make copies, one for everyone involved.

Sounds like a lot of work. YES it is but by doing this and keeping it up monthly you can help your case so much. I honestly believe my documentation was the single most important thing that helped my case. By giving your lawyer the bits and pieces back up by all the documentation you are saving him time as well as yourself money. You basically are doing his work for him. You are giving the judge compelling reasons why court should go for you. It is very hard for the bios to come to court and say, they hadn’t seen their child because the grandparents wouldn’t let them. They might say, oh I wanted to see my child on mother’s day and called beforehand and they wouldn’t answer their phone. Judge might ask what day and bio won’t know. Your journal will show the phone calls by date and time giving you more creditability than your bio.

Some of us have used 2 journals, one for our feelings and one for court. This is a wonderful idea. It gets some of the anger out. Just use common sense judgment and your documentation will be your ally.