About this site for unmarried fathers:

The reason for this site being here, unfortunately, is due to what has become a very famiar story for unmarried fathers in Summit County, Ohio.  I am a single father who has had the unpleasurable experience of going through both the Juvenile and Domestic courts in Summit County, Ohio for three out of my four children.  Though I have custody of two of my boys and what the system considers to be "shared parenting" with my daughter, I can tell you that it all came with an unfair price.

Month after month in court, I realized how imbalanced the laws were, in regards to unmarried fathers in this county and state.  It then occurred to me that many other fathers were likely out there in the same boat. Like me, these fathers were fighting for their children, but because of the "general way of doing business" in Summit County, and the biased letters of the law, we would never stand a chance.  The way in which an unmarried father is treated is no better than a person off the street, insofar as rights to their child is concerned.  I knew that something had to be done.

One of the biggest problems that unmarried fathers face in this state is being unprepared for the ordeals awaiting them within the domestic and juvenile court system.  Besides the pressures and injustices that the Ohio Revised Code creates for all fathers, I can assure you that there are many practices in the courts today, which are not written in the law books.  These "in-house-policies" are designed to make cases easier for the courts to issue orders that are consistent with the usual manner of doing business, generally in the mother's favor.  They are never based on logic, nor fact.  They simply exist.

So, from my experiences in the courts in this county, I started this website to provide the right resources for all unmarried fathers in our area and state.  There are a few goals here: one is to is to allow the free flow of ideas and facts to gravitate toward the people who need it most, and two is to educate fathers about the processes that will surely face them, whereas they may use these details wisely in future or current cases.  Lastly, the Summit Dads website will hopefully light a spark that will cause you to call the Senate and House of Representatives to let them know that the same old way of doing business with dads in this region will no longer be acceptable or tolerated.

I believe that a day will come where fathers will be treated fairly in the court system.  However, we will have to all work at it together, one step at a time to get there.