By Alan Adams, Major, USAF (Ret.) | PTSD Awareness Month | June 2026
Disclosure: Alan Adams is a retired U.S. Air Force Major and one of the individuals discussed in this article. He is currently a plaintiff in federal civil rights proceedings in the Western District of Washington. Father & Co. has reviewed federal court filings, state court orders, and the assessment timeline described in this article.
June has been recognized nationally as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Awareness Month through U.S. Senate resolutions and is actively promoted by the Department of Veterans Affairs’ National Center for PTSD. For military families in family court, awareness is not enough. Courts, evaluators, state-ordered service providers, and child-custody systems must stop treating PTSD, military service, weapons training, traumatic brain injury, and service-connected disabilities as “high risk” factors to deny child custody.
This is not an argument that courts should ignore child safety. They should not. It is an argument that courts must distinguish between evidence and stereotype. They must stop substituting a veteran’s diagnosis for proof of risk, treating military training as domestic danger, and restricting a disabled parent’s custody, visitation, decision-making, or court access without complying with Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Contrary to Hollywood legend, PTSD should not be treated as a proxy for dangerousness. Research shows that most people with PTSD are not violent, and the risk of violence is far more strongly associated with factors such as alcohol or substance misuse, prior violence, younger age, anger severity, and co-occurring conditions than with PTSD alone.
The issue is not whether family courts may protect children. They must. The issue is that courts and court-ordered providers may not treat PTSD, TBI, weapons training, combat exposure, veteran status, disability ratings, or mental-health treatment history as evidence of parental risk. When a disabled parent’s custody, visitation, decision-making, or access to court proceedings is restricted, Title II and Section 504 require the record to show a current, objective, individualized assessment of actual risk and a reasonable-modification analysis. Without that assessment, there is no reliable record showing that the disabled parent was treated equally or that the restriction was not based on disability discrimination.
PTSD should not be treated as a proxy for dangerousness.
Federal Law Requires Individualized Assessments
Lt. Col. (Ret.) Erhan Bedestani wrote articles in 2022 and 2025 identifying the problem. In The Negative Impact of Service Member and Veteran Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) Rating or Specter of PTSD on Child Custody Arrangements, Bedestani describes how service members and veterans can be praised as national heroes in public life while being treated as “ticking time bombs” in family court. His article explains that PTSD — or even the “specter” of PTSD — can be used to reduce parenting time, deny custody, or force a veteran to prove that he or she is not dangerous.
Hill and Bedestani’s 2025 article in Family Court Review, “Got Your Six? Veterans and the Family Court System,” expands the concern. They identify several structural barriers facing service members and veterans in custody cases, including the over-association of military service with PTSD and the incorrect assumption that PTSD manifests primarily as violence. The article states the premise plainly: status as a veteran or service member can negatively impact custody determinations, and the system lacks adequate data to measure the problem.
That is exactly why PTSD Awareness Month matters. The question is not whether PTSD exists. It does. The question is whether courts are using PTSD as a disability requiring lawful accommodation or as a label that justifies ending child custody.
Federal disability law already provides the answer. DOJ and HHS guidance make clear that Title II of the ADA and Section 504 protect parents with disabilities in child welfare systems and courts. The guidance states that disability nondiscrimination and child safety are “mutually attainable and complementary,” and it specifically warns against separating families based on stereotypes, lack of individualized assessments, or failure to provide needed services.
The same guidance is explicit that state courts and family-court proceedings are covered. Covered programs and activities include investigations, assessments, removal proceedings, visitation, guardianship, reunification services, custody hearings, and proceedings to terminate parental rights. Courts and agencies may consider safety, but they must base restrictions on individualized assessments and objective facts, including the nature, duration, and severity of any risk, the probability that harm will actually occur, and whether reasonable modifications can reduce or eliminate the risk.
Washington’s own Title II guide for courts says the same thing. A finding that someone poses a direct threat cannot be based on generalizations or stereotypes about a disability. It must rest on an individualized assessment using current medical evidence or the best available objective evidence.
Yet veterans are still encountering court systems that acknowledge PTSD while denying meaningful accommodations or relying on disability-related assumptions to restrict parenting.
Real Cases Illustrate the Problem
Veteran Jeffrey Reichert’s case on the East Coast shows the access-to-justice problem. In Reichert v. Hornbeck, a federal court found that Reichert had presented evidence of PTSD and granted remote participation for discovery and pretrial matters as a reasonable accommodation. Subsequent Maryland state appellate decisions in early 2026 continued to uphold significant restrictions on Reichert’s access in the family court proceedings, illustrating how federal ADA relief on participation does not automatically remedy underlying custody restrictions or ensure full merits review. A related article reports that while accommodation issues remained unresolved in state family court, multiple hearings proceeded without his participation, raising the question of whether courts are treating disability-related absence as voluntary nonappearance. The federal court did not decide the custody merits; it decided access. That distinction matters because ADA violations in family court often occur before the merits are ever fairly heard.
Sean Kuhlmeyer’s U.S. Supreme Court petition argued that a 20-year protection order functioned as a de facto termination of the parent-child relationship by severely restricting contact with his son without the level of due process required when fundamental parental rights are at stake. His petition also notes that Warrior Family Advocacy filed an amicus brief raising discrimination concerns related to his disabled veteran status. Though PTSD was a factor mentioned in his case, a Title II individualized assessment was not provided.
Alan Adams’ ongoing case in Washington presents another version of the same systemic issue that continues into 2026. In April 2025, King County Superior Court suspended in-person parenting time until further order without conducting any individualized assessment of disability-related risk, the nature, duration, or severity of any alleged risk, the probability that harm would occur, or whether reasonable modifications could mitigate concerns, as Title II of the ADA and Section 504 require. The court has not followed federal disability law. As of June 2026, these restrictions remain in effect despite Adams having filed a CR 60(b) motion for relief on due process and ADA grounds (November 2025), pursued appeals to the Washington Court of Appeals Division I, initiated federal civil rights actions alleging Title II violations (U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, Nos. 2:25-cv-01360-JHC [9th Cir. appeal No. 25-7244] and 2:25-cv-02256-JNW), and commenced Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings (Case No. 26-10373-TWD) to address related enforcement actions. Multiple court-ordered assessments identified no harm or risk to the child, and the court itself noted no negative impact, yet the court continues to maintain severe restrictions on the parent-child relationship without the current, objective, individualized assessment and reasonable-modification analysis that federal law mandates before limiting a disabled parent’s custody, visitation, or decision-making rights. This is not in compliance with the law. It is the substitution of disability-related assumptions and veteran status for the particularized findings Title II demands.
The question is not whether a court can ever impose safety-related conditions. The concern is whether state courts and court-ordered service providers are making disability-informed, individualized, objective assessments — based on conduct and current evidence rather than diagnosis, veteran status, or military training — before imposing restrictions that sever or severely limit parent-child relationships.
“A veteran should not have to hide PTSD to avoid losing a child.”
In Adams’ Washington case, the court ordered five domestic violence assessments over the course of the proceedings. The first agency, ACT&T, assessed the opposing party but declined to assess Adams without explanation. The second, conducted by the VA, identified Adams as a victim of domestic violence and enrolled him in victim support services. The third, conducted by Dr. William Singer, returned a Level 0 finding — meaning no domestic violence intervention treatment was warranted. A fourth agency, Assessment & Treatment Associates, completed intake and accepted payment but never produced a report; a Washington Department of Health complaint was subsequently filed. The fifth assessment, conducted by STOP Agency in February 2025, was performed by a trainee rather than the named evaluator, returned a Level 1 finding recommending six months of treatment, and contained factual misrepresentations of Adams’ intake materials — attributing perpetration to a man whose own intake documents described him as a victim, supported by police reports and a No Contact Order issued for his protection. An independent review by Dr. Rybicki, Psy.D., concluded the STOP report had diminished accuracy and validity and should be given no weight in judicial decision-making. The Washington Department of Health has opened investigations into both the agency and the individual assessor.
Concerns also arose regarding the way military service and disabilities were treated in assessment materials. An assessment treated military weapons training, PTSD, traumatic brain injury, anxiety, and military exposure to violence as “high risk” without context, time limitation, or distinction between ordinary military service and current danger. The same materials made vague references to psychological treatment during service, combat wounds, disability ratings, and weapons training and omitted references to cultural competency, resilience, leadership, and current parenting capacity. In four assessments required by the court, no harm or risk was identified, and the court itself stated no harm or negative impact on the child, yet the court required a fifth report (with no change in circumstances), which resulted in the suspension of custody. Requiring repeat and redundant assessments without any change in circumstances, after multiple prior evaluations cleared the parent, and without conducting the individualized Title II assessment federal law requires, violates Title II by imposing unnecessary barriers based on disability assumptions rather than current, objective evidence.
That should alarm every military family.
Military service members are trained in weapons. Many have been exposed to trauma. Some have PTSD, TBI, anxiety, chronic pain, or other service-connected disabilities. An assessment should not infer deception or danger merely because a combat veteran acknowledges anxiety, trauma exposure, PTSD, TBI, or military weapons training. None of those facts automatically means a parent is dangerous. None of those facts eliminates the ADA. None of those facts allows a court or evaluator to skip the individualized assessment required by federal disability law.
A veteran should not have to hide PTSD to avoid losing a child. A service member should not have to deny weapons training that the military required. A parent should not be labeled high risk because of service history rather than current, objective, individualized evidence. And a disabled litigant should not be forced to navigate custody proceedings without accommodations and then punished for the very barriers the court failed to remove.
What Must Change
The solution is not complicated.
By law, courts and court-ordered service providers may not use disability as a shortcut for danger or parental unfitness. When a parent is disabled, regarded as disabled, or has a record of disability, and the court restricts custody, visitation, decision-making, or meaningful access to proceedings, the record should show the individualized assessment required by Title II and Section 504. That assessment should answer:
Without those findings, the court has not created a record showing that the disabled parent was restricted for lawful child-safety reasons rather than disability-based assumptions.
The Department of Justice Civil Rights Division and HHS Office for Civil Rights should investigate whether Washington state courts and court-ordered service providers are complying with Title II and Section 504 when PTSD or other service-connected disabilities are used to restrict parenting rights.
By law, courts and court-ordered service providers may not use disability as a shortcut for danger or parental unfitness.
Court-ordered evaluators and domestic violence assessment providers should be required to disclose whether their tools treat military service, weapons training, PTSD, TBI, or trauma history as risk factors. They should explain how they distinguish past military training from present civilian danger. They should be trained in military cultural competency. They should be prohibited from converting service-connected disability into parental unfitness without objective, current evidence. Courts should not admit or rely on assessments that convert military service, weapons training, PTSD, TBI, or trauma history into parental risk without objective evidence, military cultural competence, and an individualized ADA analysis.
Courts should also stop proceeding with high-stakes custody matters while ADA accommodation requests remain unresolved. Reichert’s case shows why. Once hearings occur without a disabled parent, the record is built in that parent’s absence. Later relief may come too late to repair the damage. These cases illustrate the stakes: once parenting time is suspended or effectively eliminated, the harm to the parent-child relationship may become irreversible before appellate or civil-rights review can occur.
Finally, Congress, state legislatures, VA, DoD, DOJ, and state court systems need data. Bedestani’s work has noted that the evidence base remains underdeveloped and that further study is needed to understand how PTSD and military status affect custody outcomes. Without data, courts can continue to describe these cases as isolated. Veterans know they are not isolated.
The Secretary of Veterans Affairs, the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division, HHS Office for Civil Rights, relevant U.S. Attorneys, Congress, state legislatures, and state court systems could make an immediate positive impact. The President, through executive action directing federal agencies, could also prioritize data collection, inter-agency coordination, and policy reforms to ensure veterans with service-connected disabilities receive the individualized assessments and accommodations Title II requires.
PTSD Awareness Month should not be reduced to public education slogans while the same diagnosis is used in court as a reason to separate veterans from their children. Awareness can mean ending stigma, enforcing Title II, requiring individualized assessments, providing reasonable accommodations, and insisting on evidence-based decision-making.
Veterans with PTSD are not asking for special treatment. They are asking courts to follow the law.
They are asking not to be stereotyped.
Veterans should not be separated from their children because they served our nation’s military.
Editor’s Note:
Father & Co. has independently reviewed federal court filings (Case Nos. 2:25-cv-01360-JHC and 2:25-cv-02256-JNW, U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington), King County Superior Court orders, including the November 2025 contempt order and deed transfer, and the five-assessment timeline described in this article. The Washington State Department of Health has open investigations into the STOP agency report referenced above (DOH Case Nos. 2025-9793, 2025-9795, 2025-9796, 2025-9797) and into the individual assessor (Case Nos. 2025-19460CP / 2025-19459CG). Sources are available upon request.
Sources include DOJ/HHS Title II guidance for courts and child welfare agencies, Washington’s Title II ADA Guide for Courts, Bedestani’s 2022 article on PTSD and custody, Hill and Bedestani’s 2025 Family Court Review article, Reichert federal accommodation filings, Kuhlmeyer’s U.S. Supreme Court petition, and Washington court records and assessment materials in the Adams matter.
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