Assisting qualified mothers and their children with visitation and custody expenses, TCP recognizes that finances often diminish sharply when legal expenses must take precedence to preserve a family's welfare, and common necessities must be forfeited. Our grants assist families directly with legal expenses or, when they have been paid, with food, utilities, rent, mortgage, car, and other expenses
which had to be forfeited to cover the legal expenses. We do this through our Heart to Heart Program, assisting qualified mothers with care, custody and visitation expenses, including reference, consultation, and caseload costs, via grants. In addition to TCP's grant program, our revolving door loan program serves when, as mothers repay their loans, the funds become available to help other families in need. Helping mothers and their children for over eighteen years, The Custody Project acknowledges that under ordinary circumstances mothers may work for $4-$12 per hour - stretching dollars daily to feed, clothe, and care for their children and themselves - sometimes in babysitting, waitress, piecework, and other occupations paying below minimum wage. When circumstances arise, such as domestic violence, abuse, absent or inadequate child support, legal attempts to remove custody, and legal restraints that prevent mothers from improving the quality of life for their families, their lives are compounded, their situations become extraordinarily more difficult, and their economic challenges are made infinitely harsher. When imposed upon disadvantaged and overextended mothers, such crushing burdens can cause devastating familial hardships. Our grants help some of these deserving families stay afloat, often at perilous junctures. With attorneys and experts charging $25-$350+ per hour, court and legal fees in addition, and mothers usually making far less, the protection and defense of custody of children can be expensive, and the economic disparity can cause financial ruin. Representation may be spotty or nonexistent; oftentimes mothers must represent themselves and their children in courts of law without training or understanding of the judicial system. It is unacceptable when custody and visitation are at issue that loss of custody and contact with children results from lack: lack of money, good representation, and/or legal knowledge.
