A previous post here discussed how parents in Rockford, Illinois, who are doing their best to raise a child with special medical or educational needs may also have some special legal needs when it comes to setting up child support. Sometimes, the Illinois Child Support Guidelines, which are tailored with the “typical” family in mind, do not adequately account for the extra costs that come with raising a special needs child. These costs include extra medical and counseling bills, costs for various therapies and rehabilitation efforts and extra costs for educational and other support.
A single parent should not have to choose between not giving a child what that child truly needs and feeling the financial crunch of doing so. Instead, they can, and should, ask the child’s other parent to contribute to these extra costs, even if it that other parent is already paying the child support required under Illinois Support Guidelines.
However, assuming the other parent does not cooperate, holding the other parent responsible will likely mean a trip to court, since a judge is not going to deviate from the standard Guidelines without hearing a good reason to do so. In this respect, as experienced child support attorneys, our law office is prepared to step in and help our clients who are parents of special needs children and who need to make their cases for additional financial support.
As experienced family law attorneys, we know what sort of evidence Rockford-area judges typically look for when it comes to deciding whether a child requires additional support and how much support should be awarded. With this information in mind, we help our clients gather the necessary documentation in order to present the most convincing case to the judge that is possible.