Professor Develops Series of Policy Spotlights Centered Around Domestic Violence in Child Custody Cases
DEBRA STARK
On February 27, 2026, Professor Debra Pogrund Stark of University of Illinois Chicago School of Law presented to the Education, Learning, Family & Child Well-Being Working Group of the Institute for Government and Public Affairs regarding her plans to update and expand her prior scholarship, Properly Accounting for Domestic Violence in Child Custody Cases: An Evidence Based Analysis and Reform Proposal, published in the Michigan Journal of Gender and Law (2019).
Professor Stark will collaborate with Dr. Alisa Velonis of the University of Illinois Chicago School of Public Health and Nicola Lowery, a graduate student in public health at UIC, to develop a series of policy spotlights for the Institute of Government and Public Affairs (IGPA) addressing these issues.
The first policy spotlight will examine the harmful effects of children’s exposure to domestic violence on physical and mental health, as well as on cognitive development, including recent brain-imaging research documenting these impacts. It will also discuss protective measures that courts can implement in child custody proceedings to reduce these harms. The report will propose specific amendments to the Illinois Marriage and Dissolution of Marriage Act (IMDMA), including legislative findings recognizing these harms and provisions requiring courts to order various forms of protections on parenting time when a child has been exposed to repeated physical violence or repeated coercive abuse by one parent against the other.
Subsequent policy spotlights will address evidence-based intervention programs and mental-health treatment options for family members that courts may order in appropriate cases. The policy spotlights will also focus on the need for evidence-based training on domestic violence and child abuse for family law attorneys, judges and custody evaluators. The most effective modes of training will then be communicated to the Illinois Supreme Court for their consideration and adoption for the required training of professionals involved in child custody proceedings.