[Yosif]

My daughter was beat by her son's father while she was pregnant. A police report was filed and he is now incarcerated. His parents still see the baby who is now 1, but he has never met his father. My daughter had been working and going to school so she was getting state child care assistance. Now they tell her that they will not help her unless she applies for child support from him even though he is incarcerated. She does not want him to have any rights to the baby in fear for herself and her son. Can she sever his rights and still get child support? What can she do?

[JudyKayTee]

This is a legal question and I have asked that it be moved. In SOME circumstances where the father will be incarcerated for a lengthy period OR is a habitual criminal it is possible to sever the father's rights to the child BUT under any other circumstances it is almot impossible.

The fact that the father beat your daughter does NOT mean he is a danger to the child.

Support and rights are not related - he can be awarded visitation and not have to pay support and the other way around.

In this economy I would venture a guess that the majority of (employed) taxpayers feel BOTH parents should support their children, not count on the (unrelated) taxpayers to do so.

And, yes, the policy about filing for support is the same in NY, where I am. State support stops until/unless the mother applies for child support.

Your daughter appears to have two choices - do nothing, support herself and her child and HOPE the father never files for visitation OR file for support, get the State to help and HOPE the father never files for visitation.

If and when he does file she would have to PROVE he is a danger. Visitation would begin in a supervised situation and then might change to unsupervised if there are no problems.

[Fr_Chuck]

First his rights to visit has nothing to do with her filing for support. So he still will have the same legal rights after he gets out, as he would either way, so if she never files for support, he will still have full rights to ask for visits though the court.

So she needs to file for support.

Unless he files in court for visits, he can not enforce any visits. Most likely she can restrict him to only having supervised visits though a court facility that does supervision. She can try to restrict him from any visits, but this seldom happens.

But yes, the state is correct, she has to list the father, attempt to get child support to receive welfare.