Father of my child knows his son exists. Has refused to take paternity test or voluntary acknowledgement roughly a year ago, refused parenting time on multiple occasions after requesting to see his child. Applied for paternity services in October, has failed to provide the correct paperwork twice after requesting it, has denied parenting time offered from county twice, the second time most recently while case for paternity is open with state.
It's important to understand that these two issues - child support, and a parent's custody or visitation rights - are not directly related, or at least the rights work independently. Child support amounts are calculated based on the amount of parenting time that each parent has with the child, measured in overnight stays per year; but that's as far as the connection goes. A parent's failure to pay child support does not result in them losing the right to see their child, if they want to. A court will not force a parent to see their child if they don't want to - but it will force a parent to pay child support even if they don't want to see the child.
In this case, if the father's paternity has not been legally established, then doing that has to be the first step to getting child support from him. You can file a filiation petition with the circuit court, seeking a determination of paternity - though it sounds like this process is already ongoing with the state, so you can also just wait for that to resolve. He has the right to contest it and try to prove he's not the father, if he wants; this can be resolved by a DNA test if necessary.
Once he is established as the father, you can each ask the court to order specific custody and parenting time provisions. He could seek visitation with the child, or even custody, in theory. Mind you, he would not be likely to get custody based on what you've said here. Oregon law does not favor either mothers or fathers because of their gender; but it does favor a child's "primary custodial parent" (that is, the one who's done most of the work of raising them) in custody cases. Courts are cautious and conservative about disrupting children's lives, and generally leave them where they've been. So you're not likely to lose primary legal and physical custody absent some really compelling reason. On the other hand, Oregon law also presumes that it is in a child's best interests to have a relationship with regular and ongoing contact with both parents; so if the father seeks visitation in court, he will almost certainly get something. You can ask for it to be supervised, sure, but that request is only likely to be granted if you can prove that the father has done something that presents a risk of harm to the child. Oregon courts do not want to see a parent acting to interfere in the relationship between a child and their other parent; you must be sure not to act like you're trying to do this.
Assuming that you end up with primary physical custody (i.e., the child living mainly with you), as you almost certainly will, the father will also be ordered to pay child support. If you receive any government benefits like TANF, food stamps, etc., then some or all of that child support will go to the state, rather than to you directly, to subsidize the costs of these programs. His wages will be subject to garnishment, to force him to pay. However, if he has no job, or works entirely on a cash basis ("under the table"), then it can be difficult to force him to pay anything. You can't take money that isn't there. He would, in that circumstance, accumulate a substantial arrearage (debt), that will play havoc with his credit for the rest of his life and would not be dischargeable even in bankruptcy; he would also risk having his driver's license suspended, if he owes too much. So he does have a strong incentive to pay.
So there's a lot going on here. Your best bet for a good outcome is to retain a lawyer to represent you.
the OBLIGATION to support the child is not dependent on the RIGHT to parenting time. He can choose to see or not see the child but he cannot chose to not support the child. If you have not engaged the services of an Attorney or your local Child Support Office to affirmatively establish his paternity and his obligation to support the child you should do so soon.
Not sure what you mean that you applied for paternity services. All you have to do in Oregon is ask the State to help you establish child support. They will go after the father and establish Paternity one way or another. They may just send him paperwork declaring that he is the father and offer him a chance to get a blood test to prove he isn't the father. One way or another the state will go after him at no charge to you and unless he takes the blood test and it is determined he isn't the father, you will end up with an order directing him to pay child support.
The process of establishing Paternity and child support however, will not result in a determination that you have custody and will not set a parenting time plan in place. It is imperative that you run, not walk, to the courthouse and file a document (that you can find at the courthouse) requesting that the court establish you as the custodial parent. The reason you need to do this very quickly is because the child support procedure will have given the Father legal rights as the Father, and without some court order saying you are the custodial parent, Father could legally pick up the child and not return the child to you. So you want to make sure that this doesn't happen.
As for what exactly the parenting time plan will say - you can suggest anything you want in the initial paperwork. I wouldn't put no visitation unless there is a really good reason, like the Father has a drug or alcohol problem or he is engaged in criminal activity. Remember that restrictions on parenting time are normally ordered by the court to protect the child from a dangerous situation. Apathy is not a dangerous situation. Typically, the parenting time plan will consider the age of the child. For very young children the visits may only be for a few hours rather than overnight. Click on this link for instructions and sample parenting time plans: http://courts.oregon.gov/OJD/OSCA/JFCPD/Pages/FLP/Parenting-Plan-Guide.aspx. You might also want to talk to an experienced family law lawyer and get some ideas for a plan customized for your situation. There are two things to keep in mind: 1. No matter what the parenting time plan is, the other parent can still choose not to exercise their rights to visit, and 2. The amount of child support you have been awarded can be decreased once the other parent has the child overnight more than 1/3 of the nights in the year. (Check me on that, but that's the way the child support guidelines used to work - once the other parent had more than .3333 of the overnights, the child support paid to the custodial parent started to go down, but only in very small increments so it may not even matter to you.)
