Over a year ago, the Domestic Relations Committee, chaired by Judge Christopher Lee, teamed up with the Department of Child Services (DCS) to implement an online calendar tool as an option to help parents and the courts establish parenting time with their children based on the Indiana Parenting Time Guidelines.
DCS currently uses printed yearly calendars, which include stickers for children to denote special occasions and when they will spend time with each parent. The new online calendar tool includes these special occasion dates and school calendar schedules when available. The Department of Education will provide statewide school schedules to Trial Court Technology for this project.
The Parenting Time Calendar includes information about the parents: names, birthdays, and which day is designated – Mother’s Day or Father’s Day – to be with their children. The calendar also provides information about the children: names, birthdays, school names, and bedtime, if applicable, and any notes that pertain to each child.
After selecting the custodial parent and the date parenting time will begin, the application will generate a 12-month color-coded calendar including birthdays for the entire family, holidays, school schedules, and the minimum parenting time allowed by the guidelines.
The Calendar is editable so users can easily add events that are not automatically generated or delete a specific event because of unusual circumstances. The Calendar may be used by parents, attorneys and judges to build a hard copy calendar based on the Indiana Parenting Time Guidelines.
The Parenting Time Calendar will initially focus on families with children three years of age and older. As the project progresses, the application can be updated to include children newborn to three years.
The Parenting Time Calendar will be available on the court’s public portal – public.courts.in.gov in 2018.
For additional information on this article, please contact Mary DePrez at (317) 234-2604 or [email protected].