BPDFamily.com

Everything went well. I had to go through the relationship history with her and that took up most of the time she was here. She met separately with both of the kids and my parents (we have moved in with them). It looks like the first opportunity mom will get to see the kids will be with the kid's therapists. If that goes well then Mom will possibly (not sure what evals and maybe treatment mom may have to complete first) be granted supervised visits. The GaL told me and my parents that she is not comfortable with any of Mom's family supervising, which is another positive.

Sounds good.

I haven't had a GAL involved in my case, but have read others here on these boards say to be wary of trusting what the GAL says to you. Sometimes, that patter can do a 180 turn by the turn you're in court.

Overall, tho, it sounds positive.

Quite a few of our members have agreed to supervised visits, with the other (presumably disordered) party's family doing the supervision.  Not a good idea!

If that is proposed I think you can say, "Supervised visitation is OK but it must be supervised by a professional not her family."

I went through our history with the GaL, her family was discussed, and she agreed that there is no one in her family that would be suitable for supervising. I will likely be paying a neutral party to supervise visits when it gets to that point.

I received an email from the GaL and her short report is finished so I should be getting a copy through my lawyer this week.

I would suggest not 'volunteering' to pay for the monitoring of her supervised visitation, not unless you are comfortably wealthy.  (Most here are not wealthy, so I doubt you are either.)

Generally, if her parenting is sufficiently problematic for restrictions, then she should shoulder her consequences, the costs, of her parental contact.  It's not punishment, it can actually be seen as encouragement for her to take responsibility for her own behaviors and an incentive for her to make changes.

Yes, if she's not likely to ever have much money to pay for these expenses, then yes you may get dinged for some of the fees, but she should at least pay something or else she would have less incentive to improve and every excuse to continue blaming you or even the kids for her restrictions.

You will probably find that the court will see things that way too.  I repeat, do not volunteer to pay her consequences, at least not indefinitely.  About the only excuse for you to volunteer to pay would be "until she gets on her feet financially" but even that is a risk, she may never get on her feet financially.  (In my case, I've been divorced for 5 years and yet my ex is still refusing to reimburse me for child expenses, claiming poverty.  Yet by court order I pay her child support.  She could reimburse me after receiving the child support she receives from me, but won't.  All take and no give.)  Beware of being too fair, too polite, too nice, too whatever.  That's a personality trait in us Nice Guys and Nice Gals that works against us when the other parent has deep issues such as BPD.