Category: NPO in the media

November 9, 2019 By Mark Bliss ~ Southeast Missourian

State Rep. Kathy Swan and state Sen. Wayne Wallingford are pushing legislation for shared parenting in custody cases.

The two Republican, Cape Girardeau lawmakers met recently with shared-parenting advocates in Cape Girardeau.

A documentary, “Erasing Family,” was shown Oct. 29 at The Concourse event center. The film explores the trauma experienced by children “when a loving, fit parent is erased from their lives due to separation and divorce,” said Linda Reutzel, who chairs the Missouri chapter of the National Parents Organization.

“Parents going through divorce should not fear losing significant parenting time with their children and, even more importantly, children should not feel abandoned by one of their parents,” she said in a news release.

Read more at The Southeast Missourian

US News and World Report published a story on NPO’s Shared Parenting Report Card. They noted that “the number of states that are considered a ‘shared parenting state’ (meaning they earned a C grade or better) increased from 26 in 2014 to 34 in 2019, but 17 states still remain in the D or F range.”

Fox News published a story about National Parents Organization’s 2019 Shared Parenting Report Card. They noted that the states did slightly better than in 2014, with the average grade going from a D+ to a C-. 

Originally published August 30, 2019 in the Courier Journal 

National Parents Organization’s own Matt Hale has an op-ed in the Courier Journal in Kentucky, who used court statistics to debunk many myths about shared parenting. Some key takeaways:

“Kentucky’s family court caseload and domestic violence cases had been rising, which is expected because our state’s population is increasing. But, in early July 2017, that trend abruptly stopped and family court cases and domestic violence filings began declining…”

“The year before Kentucky had any shared parenting laws, beginning July 14, 2016, and lasting 365 days, there were 22,512 family court cases filed. They declined to 21,847 the year the partial shared parenting law began. When the complete shared parenting law took effect in the last 12 months, new cases plummeted to 19,991. In other words, Kentucky’s families filed to sue each other in family court more than 11% less despite the state’s population growth…”

“Domestic violence claims declined by 248 in 2017 when the partial shared parenting law was enacted. Further, the decline of domestic violence accelerated by dropping an additional 445 cases as the complete shared parenting law took effect in 2018 versus the prior year… “

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Originally published August 18, 2019 in the Times Reporter out of Tuscawaras County, Ohio

By Don Hubin, Ph.D.

Viruses, whether of the biological or computer variety, are bad. But “going viral” can be very good, especially when what is going viral is good for children. And, it looks as if the Tuscarawas County Court of Common Pleas is “patient 0″ for a virtuous virus that is, fortunately, spreading to some of its neighboring counties.

Last year, National Parents Organization (NPO) conducted a study of the standard parenting time guidelines that each Ohio domestic relations court is required to establish. We wanted to see which courts were promoting equal shared parenting—a model of separated parenting that decades of scientific research show is usually best for children whose parents are living apart.

Read More

Member of our Board of Directors and Chair of our Ohio chapter Don Hubin details the changes Clermont County made to their parenting time guidelines that warranted changing their grade from a C+ to an A in NPO’s Ohio Parenting Time Report. As Don writes, For decades, we have known that the thing that troubles children most about parental separation is the damage to their relationship with one of their parents.” and now Clermont County recognizes this as well. Read the entire op-ed here.

Linda Reutzel writes in the Southeast Missourian of her experiences with family court and how even though Missouri did not pass its shared parenting bill this year, there haves still been successes in the state. Read the full column here. 

The Pioneer News has an excellent article on the Chair of our Kentucky affiliate, Matt Hancock. They also spoke to Matt Hale, former Chair and current member of the National Board of Directors on the decision to appoint Hancock the new Chair and the progress NPO has made in Kentucky. Read the full article here. 

Matt Hale and Linda Reutzel wrote about the tale of two girls, one in Missouri (where there is no shared parenting law) and one in Kentucky (where the first shared parenting law in the nation was passed) for Divorce Magazine. The stark differences between the experiences of the these two girls shows just why we need shared parenting around the country. Read the full story here.