Divorce Support Forums: Case Studies?

Yes. What are you looking for?

If you're wanting statistics, it's going to be a different source and a different result than if you want individual case studies.

There are some data compilations. I am usually able to find what I want by looking at census data. And there are some statistics-seeking websites where you can look up that stuff.

Anecdotal case studies are hard to get a compilation of. You'll find stories told in various self help books, with the writer describing mostly situations they've seen in thier practices. Generally, what you'll see are situations that did NOT work, or at least did not work at first. THe cooperative parents who have figured out how to separately co-parent on thier own rarely get thier cases reported in books, seminars, etc. However, if you're wanting a look into people's individual child custody evaluations, for example, recognize that most of these are sealed as a part of the divorce.

But most individual divorce records and their settlements/decrees are actually public record (which is why most states have ordered that no social security numbers or account numbers are allowed to be part of that)...

If you're wanting to see what your own judge did when given the chance to make a ruling rather than approve of something stipulated upon by parents, you'll have to look up thier recent trials and final decrees from those cases.

If you want to see what parenting plans are worked out when the parents go to "counselor A", you'll have to look up cases that counselor A was appointed to, then find the final decrees and parenting plans from those cases (most of which are public record).

Some court clerk's offices have better information and retrieval sources than others. In my current hometown, you can find out some of the inforamation by going online (online is all the dates fo the events in the cases, and all the orders that were written by the judge), but some of it (like orders proposed and sent in by otehr people that were eventually signed by the judge instead of making the judge type up thier own) you actually have to go to a courthouse... but once at the courthouse you can look it up & get a copy off the comptuer they have there. In my old hometown, you actually had to figure out what case and what paper you were looking for by looking it up in thier records on the computer, and then ask them to go to their closed file warehouse and pull the case to photocopy the paperwokr for you.

It is a real hassle some places, and wonderful in others.

By the way, when you vote for your local clerk of courts, remember this... their ONLY job is to maintain the records, keep the files, and make it available to you. If they're not doing that very efficiently, you might want to look for someone who has the skills to upgrade the system rather than just voting for whoever's name you recongize!

So you can see your question is way too broad to figure out how to answer? I mean, the easy answer is "yes, of course"... but it's not like there are resources wehre all the information you want is goign to be easy to find and figure out, all in one place, without a whole lot of legwork.

Unfortunately, there are very few unbiased compilations of data, very few compilations that take into account the TYPICAL cases where the parents are doing a good job of separately co-parenting the kids!

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