I am writing a personal statement for a Non Custodial Waiver Request for my absentee father.
Basically, my parent’s relationship was abusive and when they divorced, my mom decided it would be best to just raise her kids on her own and not deal w/ the emotional trauma & abuse that would come from him staying in our lives. we are an immigrant family and he began to threaten my mom’s family back home when the divorce was initially getting worked out over things like custody and child support(he didn’t want us at all). thus, since then there has been no contact. we don’t know where he stays, whether he’s still emplyed, if he has a new family, etc, etc. we fear that attempting to contact him to even provide new info would just open a world of abuse and insult… its just ugh.
anyways, the dilemma is we hardly have documentation to prove this b/c lets face it, this is very private and my family doesn’t have the privilege nor resources to hire therapists and etc. No third party statements outside of family friends(which are not allowed) could support the details of WHY there is no contact. They can confirm there isn’t contact but that’s it. I need to properly explain to these schools WHY there isn’t contact because thats what they’re looking for, but I don’t want it to seem like I’m making things up. i want to explain why things are the way they are but I don’t want to bring up what I cannot prove.
(1) Write a statement explaining the situation.
(2) Ask your mother to write a statement explaining the situation. (Yes, you’ll need both hers and yours.)
(3) Get a letter from your school guidance counselor stating that there is no contact with your father.
(4) Get a letter from one other professional (perhaps a social worker, minister or physician) stating that the only parent he or she has ever dealt with is your mother.
(5) Get a letter from a family friend who was around when your parents were married, and at the time of the divorce, and can document what went on.
You are mistaken that a statement from a family friend “isn’t allowed” - sometimes that’s all you’ve got. It won’t take the place of the school or physician letter, but it can supplement those with additional information. Good luck!
Understand that the schools may be skeptical of claims that contact would be dangerous if there is no record of abuse convictions, protection orders, etc. They may say there is not persuasive evidence that you cannot contact your father to get his information.
You should be covered by simply showing you have had no contact for many years and have no information on where he is our how to contact him.