Rights Require Routes — A Project of CustodyCrisis.org
This charter is a plain-language statement of the agreement between Rights Require Routes and the people who share their stories here. It describes what this project is, what it promises, and what it cannot do.
The family court system frequently fails to accommodate the cognitive, emotional, and physical realities of the people navigating it. Rights Require Routes exists to document these invisible barriers. By collecting lived experiences from pro se litigants, protective parents, and others who have navigated family court, this project aims to translate individual isolation into systemic visibility, research, and advocacy.
This project is led by Katie Copeland, a Texas attorney, advocate, and researcher based in the Dallas–Fort Worth area. It is not a law firm, a crisis service, or a government entity.
When a story is shared with Rights Require Routes, the following commitments apply:
Your story belongs to you. The permission level selected on the form will be honored strictly. If "Research Only" is selected, the story will never be quoted, attributed, or identified in any public-facing material.
Patterns, not judgment. The research looks for systemic failures — where the court process itself created barriers related to memory, processing, anxiety, trauma, or physical access. Individual stories are not evaluated for legal merit or credibility.
No individual case assistance. This project cannot provide legal advice, representation, or crisis intervention. Submitting a story does not create an attorney-client relationship.
The right to change your mind. Any participant may request deletion of their story at any time by emailing katie@custodycrisis.org. Records will be permanently deleted within 72 hours.
Stories collected will be synthesized to identify systemic patterns in family court access. The data may be used for the following purposes:
| Purpose | Description |
|---|---|
| Academic & Legal Research | Identifying how ADA Title II and basic access principles are failing in family courts across the country. |
| Public Advocacy | Creating reports, articles, or presentations to educate judges, lawyers, and policymakers about systemic barriers. |
| Community Validation | Sharing aggregated findings back with the community so participants know they are not alone and their stories contributed to something larger. |
| Publication | Stories shared with name permission may be included in published works. Stories shared as "Research Only" or "Anonymous" will never be individually attributed. |
This project operates on the principle that lived experience is expertise. The people who have survived family court are not just data sources — they are the reason this research exists. Findings will be shared in plain language, accessible to the community, not locked behind academic paywalls or institutional gatekeepers.
The project will continually refine its focus based on what the community reveals in the data. If patterns emerge that were not anticipated at the outset, the community will be informed.
Data is stored in a secure, private Notion database accessible only to the Principal Investigator. The project practices data minimization — only what is needed to understand the systemic issue is collected. For full technical details, see the Privacy Policy.
Your experience matters. It belongs in the record. It can change what comes next for someone else.
Share Your Story