What Constitutes a Material Change of Circumstances

My question involves a child custody case from the State of: Texas/Virginia

Initial disclaimer: My husband and I are not without guilt here, and we know that. We sincerely regret poor decisions and their effects on our children, and we're doing everything in our power to demonstrate that through our actions. Any bashing is perfectly deserved, but not really helpful for us at this point. Just wanted to get that out the way.

The story: My husband who is a recovering substance abuser, had a relapse two years ago that landed him in inpatient rehab. (FWIW he was already clean when we met and decided to marry and have kids). At the time we had a 3 and 1 yr old and I was pregnant with our third. The sudden loss of his income, combined with no friends or family in the area (my inlaws were not forthcoming with any help) took a huge mental/emotional toll on me. I am diagnosed with PTSD due to childhood trauma and one of the recommendations of my therapist had been to cut ties with my family of origin due to their abusive nature.

Stupidly ---STUPIDLY--- out of isolation and discouragement I contacted my mother. She was on and off supportive through occasional phone calls and presents mailed to the kids and it kindled a hope in me that the relationship could be repaired. A few weeks after my husband returned home I went to my regular doctor at an outpatient clinic and when he refused to change my prescription for Prozac (I felt it wasn't working) I voluntarily went to a psych hospital seeking better treatment. I was discharged after 12 hours because I was not suicidal but the doctor was required by protocol to contact CPS to do a welfare check on my children. I'm sure you see where this is going.

CPS decided to remove the children via court order. I found out at that time when reading the paperwork that my mother had contacted the hospital as well as the caseworker and made false statements about my husband and I, exaggerating and embellishing the issues at hand in a way that caused CPS to be genuinely concerned for the kids' safety. After reading what had been said about me (I wanted to hurt the kids, I was suicidal/homicidal, I had a habit of picking men up on street corners---which when called out on this, my mother claimed was technically not a lie because my husband and I met riding the same bus every day, and the bus stop was really on a street corner) I understood that although I was willing to jump through the hoops necessary it would not be a simple matter to get the kids returned because the burden of proof was now on me to disprove these very serious allegations. And I had set myself up for this due to voluntarily going to a psychiatric hospital. At the time, I was pregnant again. We were advised to transfer custody to my parents in order to enable CPS to close the case. He told us that in that way we would not risk the removal of our newborn and could continue to parent her and still be parents to our older children, the expectation being that my parents would welcome our involvement and help with caring for. After a 6 month waiting period required by law, we could go back to court and transfer the custody back to us assuming we were stable, my husband was still clean, etc. The kids went to my parents in VA through kinship foster care in May of this year. The date to do the official court mediation to make it a court order was set for October 9.

Although the placement there is not ideal by a long shot, the only alternative is for the kids to languish in foster care in Texas which would be traumatic for them, for up to a year while CPS monitors us for relapses before returning them. (We had the service plan completed within two months) We felt we had to continue with the custody arrangement despite our misgivings.

So now, my parents have PMC (custody) although DFPS will maintain some legal rights over the children for a couple more months through a program called Fostering Connections.

My mother's behavior has gone downhill quickly since the mediation took place and we signed the agreement. (middle of the night abusive phone calls, physically attacking my husband at a school event simply because we showed up to participate, which according to the court order is entirely within our rights.) She is collecting nearly $2000 a month in stipends, SSI and food stamps for my children and has not purchased any new clothes for them since they arrived in May. My son does not have an IEP at school or receive appropriate therapies. He has not had any occupational therapy since he entered their care. In our care he had therapy twice a week, was in an inclusion class where he had no behavior problems. He comes to visits wearing last winter's too-small clothes and frequently has no jacket. His teacher reports behavior issues, and he has chewed his arm black and blue at one point from anxiety. When we try to call the children during the week, my mother picks up and hangs up on us or just takes the phone off the hook for hours. She refuses to allow us to visit them in her home or to bring them to our home. She is teaching the two younger ones to call us by first names. She withholds medical information such as doctor appts and when we call the doctors to find out the apt times and show up at the scheduled times, she cancels the apt and storms out to prevent us having any interaction.

The custody mediation agreement was signed on October 9. The judge in TX did not sign it til Dec. 16th. We want to register the court order here in VA, since all parties have been here for 6 months or more, and then immediately file a motion to amend visitation. I know we need to show a material change in circumstances. I also know it's a long shot but I have to at least try.

what would potentially constitute a material change in circumstances? Our stability? Housing, jobs,etc? Problem is, we had those things way back in the summer. so I'm not sure that's really a *change* by the law's standards.

What about the grandparents' interfering with the parent-child relationship? How would I go about proving this? We do have a number of credible witnesses... educated individuals with stable lives, grown children and successful careers who have known my husband and I for a number of years and are willing to testify in court and/or write a letter in our behalf if that's helpful. We also have letters/references from the children's teacher/therapists, my midwife, etc back in TX before the removal stating that in their professional opinion the children were not at risk and were best served by NOT being removed. Is any of this useful?

We do realize that this is an uphill battle that we've created for ourselves. We are willing to do whatever it takes in terms of effort, but money is limited. Please offer suggestions.

I'm a little confused here. If you both completed the case plan, why do your parents still have custody?

In situations where mental health and/or substance abuse is the issue, even after the services are completed, CPS wants to see a lengthy period of stability with no episodes of mental crisis or drug relapse. It could potentially take a year or more of us maintaining stability while the kids were placed out of the home before CPS would be willing to return them home. And when our new baby was born, she would immediately be removed as well and placed in foster care during that period. So in order to protect her from removal, we needed a way to get the case closed before her birth, and the only way to do that was to agree to give custody of the older three to my parents.

Quote:

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Quoting monkeysinmybed

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In situations where mental health and/or substance abuse is the issue, even after the services are completed, CPS wants to see a lengthy period of stability with no episodes of mental crisis or drug relapse. It could potentially take a year or more of us maintaining stability while the kids were placed out of the home before CPS would be willing to return them home. And when our new baby was born, she would immediately be removed as well and placed in foster care during that period. So in order to protect her from removal, we needed a way to get the case closed before her birth, and the only way to do that was to agree to give custody of the older three to my parents.

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Then you really need an attorney...because custody is far different than placement via CPS.

I know I need an attorney. We can't afford a decent one. Of the MANY we have spoken to, only a few have expressed a clear understanding of all the factors involved and indicated a clear plan to get the children returned to our custody. The others just sounded...confused. And as I know from my experience with the court appointed lawyer we had during the initial phase of the CPS case, a bad lawyer is worse than no lawyer.

So again I'm asking, if we are going to represent ourselves, at least initially, what suggestions and advice would you offer?

Hon, this really does go beyond the scope of a message forum.