There Are Multiple Qualifications to Becoming a Parenting Coordinator
Video Transcribed: Who is eligible to be a Parenting Coordinator in Oklahoma? I’m Tulsa family law attorney James Wirth and I’m about to tell you who can be a Parenting Coordinator in your family law and custody case.
All right, so Oklahoma statutes, they define specifically, in Oklahoma Parenting Coordinator Act, who can be a Parenting Coordinator and they fall within essentially two categories, a licensed Oklahoma attorney with experience in Family Law could be a Parenting Coordinator and a professional in mental health can be a Parenting Coordinator.
And for the professional in mental health, there’s two ways to get there. If you have a master’s degree in the field and you have experience in mediation and you’re a licensed mediator, then you qualify to be a Parenting Coordinator or if you don’t meet those qualifications, but you are licensed in mental health and that would be either a licensed mental health professional. Yeah, if you’re a licensed mental health professional, then that gets you there as well.
So if you fall into one of those categories, then you’re eligible to be a mental health professional. Now, when you’re making a request to have somebody appointed as a Parenting Coordinator, that person has to make certain disclosures and those disclosures are statutory as well.
And those disclosures include providing a resume to both of the parties, providing notice of any suspensions, reprimands, or formal punishments relevant to being a Parenting Coordinator, notification of any criminal convictions or required sex offender registration over the last 10 years.
So once that information is provided, then the parties have 15 days to make an objection to that particular person being the Parenting Coordinator.
So if you want to be a Parenting Coordinator, obviously you want to make sure that that information is provided and hopefully it doesn’t make you look like you’re not a good candidate and if you’re in a case where you’re wanting somebody appointed, you want to look at that information in determining whether you want to object to them being the Parenting Coordinator.
One additional requirement, so if the person you want appointed as the Parenting Coordinator, if it’s in a case that has allegations related to domestic violence, harassment, and stalking, then the statute has recently been modified in 2015 to have an additional requirement that the Parenting Coordinator have taken 16 hours of domestic violence training.
So if there are allegations regarding domestic violence, harassment, and stalking, then you want to make sure that person has 16 hours of training. That is something that might narrow down your search so you want to pay particular attention to that.
If you have any questions about that, about getting a Parenting Coordinator in your case, or about your family law case, consult with an attorney because your specific circumstances may require more specific information. So if you want to talk to somebody in my office, you’ve go makelaweasy.com.
