Senate Bill 3 Summary

• Extends visitation rights to great-grandparents in addition to grandparents under Indiana family law.

• Allows grandparents or great-grandparents to seek visitation if they had meaningful contact with the child but the parent terminated visits due to estrangement between the parent and grandparent/great-grandparent.

• Establishes specific factors for courts to consider when determining best interests of the child in visitation cases, including the child's age, wishes of all parties, interaction with relatives, mental and physical health, evidence of domestic violence, and history of caregiving.

• Applies visitation rights provisions to cases involving out-of-wedlock births and parent estrangement, with requirement that paternity must be established for paternal great-grandparents.

• Becomes effective upon passage.