HB 6006 Summary

• Adds new requirements for child custody proceedings involving alleged abuse, requiring courts to consider specific "qualified evidence" including protection orders, arrests, convictions, medical records, victim advocate letters, and risk assessments before making findings.

• Prohibits courts from awarding custody or parenting time to parents found to have committed domestic violence, child abuse, sexual abuse, or patterns of coercive control, and requires supervised parenting time at the abusive parent's expense if parenting time is ordered.

• Restricts courts from removing children from protective, non-abusive parents or limiting their contact solely to improve relationships with abusive parents, and prohibits reunification treatments that cut off children from parents to whom they are bonded unless scientifically proven safe and effective.

• Requires courts to address abusive parent behavior as the primary focus when children resist contact with an abusive parent, before ordering the protective parent to facilitate the relationship.

• Establishes definitions for "qualified act" (child abuse, domestic violence, sexual abuse, physical abuse, and patterns of coercive behavior including verbal, psychological, economic, and technological abuse) and "qualified child custody proceeding" (private family court matters excluding child protective services and juvenile justice cases).