Child Custody and Domestic Violence in Pennsylvania

Every Custody Filing Starts With an Abuse History Verification

Before your case reaches a judge, both parents must disclose their criminal record and abuse history in writing. Pennsylvania Rule of Civil Procedure 1915.3-2 requires a Criminal Record/Abuse History Verification covering the filing party and every member of that party’s household.^[2]

You file it with the custody complaint, a modification petition, a counterclaim, a contempt petition, or a custody count in a divorce complaint. The responding parent does not file an answer to a custody complaint, but they do file a verification.

Under the rule amended effective July 1, 2025, the responding party files at the initial in-person contact, or within 30 days of service, whichever occurs first.^[2] The signed form goes to the other parties no less than one day before that contact.

The duty does not end there. While the child remains subject to the court’s jurisdiction, you serve an updated verification on the other parties. That is due five days after any change in circumstances, or no less than one day before any proceeding, whichever comes first.^[2]

Filing runs on its own clock. The updated form goes to the prothonotary within 14 days of a change in circumstances, or five days before any court proceeding, whichever occurs first.^[2]

Treat this form as testimony, not paperwork. What you disclose here routes your case to a conference officer or straight to a judge, before either parent has told their story. Complete it with docket numbers, dates, and dispositions in front of you.

The Risk of Harm Evaluation Happens at Your First Court Appearance

At the first in-person custody proceeding, someone screens both households for a threat to the child before any custody order is entered. Section 5329(c) requires an initial evaluation to determine whether a party or household member who committed a listed offense poses a threat to the child and whether counseling is necessary.^[3]

That initial evaluation is not conducted by a mental health professional. It is performed by the judge, the conference officer, the conciliator, or another individual the court appoints.^[3]

If it turns up a threat, the judge can order further evaluation or counseling by a court-appointed mental health professional.^[3] Separately, the custody rules let a party petition for special relief, which is how interim custody terms get set while an evaluation is pending.^[4]

How Lancaster County Routes These Cases

In Lancaster County, a local rule decides who performs that initial evaluation. Custody conference officers may handle it for a first-offense DUI, a first-offense drug possession, and a first indirect criminal contempt.^[5]

Every other listed offense goes to the assigned judge for a hearing under section 5329. So does anything in those three categories that the conference officer cannot resolve at the conference.^[5]
That routing matters more than most parents expect. Indirect criminal contempt is the charge that follows a PFA violation.^[6]
A first violation may be resolved in a conference room. A second one puts you in front of the judge who will decide your custody case.

The Convictions That Trigger a Section 5329 Hearing

Pennsylvania lists specific offenses that change what the court must do first. Before entering a custody order in that party’s favor, the court must determine that the party does not pose a threat of harm to the child.^[3] The list reaches the party seeking custody and anyone living in that party’s household, and it covers convictions, guilty pleas, no contest pleas, and substantially equivalent offenses from another jurisdiction.

The categories below are a selective summary, not the complete statutory list. Read section 5329(a) in full before concluding an offense is not on it.^[3]

• Violent offenses. Criminal homicide, simple assault, aggravated assault, recklessly endangering another person, terroristic threats, stalking, and strangulation.
• Offenses against liberty. Kidnapping, unlawful restraint, false imprisonment, luring a child into a vehicle, interference with custody of children, human trafficking, and trafficking in infants.
• Sexual offenses. Rape, statutory sexual assault, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, sexual assault, aggravated indecent assault, and indecent assault.
• Offenses against children. Incest, endangering the welfare of children, corruption of minors, sexual abuse of children, sexual exploitation of children, unlawful contact with a minor, and listed prostitution and obscenity offenses.
• Contempt of a protection order. Indirect criminal contempt for violating a PFA order.^[6] This is the one most parents do not expect, and it is what the Lancaster County routing rule turns on.
• Other listed offenses. Arson, cruelty to animals and animal fighting, drunk driving offenses, and certain controlled substance offenses.

A conviction on this list is not by itself determinative. The court examines the totality of the circumstances and still decides what serves the child’s best interest. What the court cannot do is award custody to that party without first making the threat determination.^[3]

An old conviction does not end your case, and a clean record does not end the other parent’s. The question in front of the court is present risk, which is an evidentiary question you can prepare for with treatment records, time elapsed, and the circumstances of the offense.

How the Custody Factors Weigh Abuse

Pennsylvania requires courts to give substantial weighted consideration to four safety factors above all the others.^[7] These four sit inside the larger best-interest analysis that governs every Pennsylvania child custody case, including legal custody, physical custody, and the parenting schedule.

• Which party is more likely to ensure the safety of the child.
• Present and past abuse committed by a party or a member of that party’s household. This can include past or current protection from abuse or sexual violence protection orders where there has been a finding of abuse.
• Child abuse and protective services history, drawing on the information described in section 5329.1 of the Child Custody Act.
• Violent or assaultive behavior committed by a party.

No single factor decides the case on its own. The court weighs the totality of the circumstances, giving weighted consideration to the safety factors, then enters the order it finds to be in the child’s best interest.

Protections for the Parent Who Reported the Abuse

Pennsylvania law now closes several routes by which abuse used to be turned against the person reporting it. These protections sit in section 5328(a.1) and in factor (a)(2.3), renumbered by Act 11 of 2025.^[7]

• A factor cannot be weighed against you if the circumstances behind it were a response to abuse or were necessary to protect the child or the abused party. That protection applies where you do not pose a risk to the child’s safety at the time of the hearing.
• Temporary housing instability caused by abuse cannot be counted against the party alleging abuse.
• A good faith, reasonable effort to protect your child or yourself is not evidence that you are unwilling or unable to cooperate with the other parent.
• Reasonable safety concerns and reasonable efforts to protect your child are not treated as attempts to turn the child against the other parent.
• A child’s deficient or negative relationship with one parent is not presumed to be the other parent’s doing.

These provisions are not automatic. You have to raise them and show the court the connection between what you did and the danger you were responding to. Bring the dates, the incident that prompted each decision, and the documentation that ties the two together.

Safety Conditions the Court Must Write Into the Order

Suppose the court finds a history of abuse or a present risk of harm and still awards custody to that party. The order must then contain safety conditions, and it must state the reasons behind them.^[8]

Section 5323(e) requires the conditions reasonably necessary to protect the child or the abused party, plus the court’s reason for imposing them. Where the court finds past abuse by a party, the order must also explain why unsupervised physical custody serves the child’s best interest.^[8]

• Professional or nonprofessional supervised physical custody.
• Limits on the time of day custody is permitted, the number of hours per day, or the number of hours per week.
• Batterer’s intervention and harm prevention programming from a qualified professional, with a court-ordered evaluation to determine whether further programming is necessary.
• Limits on legal custody, meaning decision-making authority over schooling, medical care, and religious upbringing.
• Any other safety condition the court finds necessary to protect the child or a household member.

Where supervised contact is ordered, either party can petition for a review of the risk of harm and whether supervision still needs to continue.^[8]

The written-reasons requirement is the part parents overlook. It puts the court’s thinking on the record, which gives you something specific to work from later, whether you want supervision lifted or kept.

When Supervised Custody Is Presumed

If the court finds an ongoing risk of abuse of the child by a preponderance of the evidence, a rebuttable presumption applies. The court shall allow only supervised physical custody between the child and the party who poses the risk.^[8]

An indicated report for physical or sexual abuse from a child protective services agency can support that finding. The court can rely on it only after conducting its own review of the circumstances that led to the report.^[8]

The statute directs courts to favor professional supervision. Nonprofessional supervision is available only where professional supervision is unavailable within a reasonable distance or the party cannot pay for it.^[8]

Even then, the proposed supervisor must appear in person before the court, execute an affidavit of accountability, and be found on the record capable of promoting the child’s safety. If professional supervision is out of reach, the alternative is not informal help from family, but a supervisor the judge has vetted.