Please help if you can, this is very important to me!

I live in Ohio, I have 2 children, a son that is 5 and a daughter that is now 6 but, my daughter was taken from my custody in May 14, '08 and was placed in her fathers for temp custody by a cpo. I was working 3rd shift and had a sitter for the night time but not during the day until about 5 at night. I had fallen asleep and my children had gotten out of the house after I had put chain locks on the door becuase they had gotten out of the house another time. The police issued 2 child endangerment charges. One was lowered to an m4 and the other was amended, I had no history in the courts. My daughters father called children services and they were involved for 30 days with a report of neglect due to my children getting out but they didn't take my children, they just said to get a babysitter and I did. My daughters father went to the DV court and the judge issued the cpo even though he admitted to smoking marijuana. I recently tried to regain custody but it was dismissed for lack of evidence on my behalf and by his evidence of our daughter getting out of the house and our daughter also losing the nail and tip of her finger by an accident in which she had stuck her finger in a paper shredder in which her father showed up at the hospital for about an hour and then left, they stated she wasn't properly supervised. I had ended up getting a cpo on him due to my daughter saying her father said, he wished I would die and due to his constant belittlement and cursing at me. He has had 4 different girlfriends around my daughter and in mid Jan '09 moved a girl in to his home in which our daughter didn't even know and had only met 2 times, to help take care of our daughter. My daughter has told me several things like her father left her with her 2 younger brothers to go to the mailbox which is in front of the trailer park, she told me her father let her drive in the culdesac on his lap. She also stated to me she had showered with this new girlfriend of her fathers and stated that she has boob rings and that I should get them. She also said she she's her daddy's member all the time, he stated that she walks in on him a lot. I had my daughter 15 days in the month of March '09 but her father will not give me anything court wise, he says he has control now. He is so hard to dea with and get along with now that he has custody. I pay child support but I have her half of the time. He stated in court that he doesn't believe our daughter is safe in my care but yet he lets me have her a lot. He has even tried to get back together with me on several occasions but, I was reluctant to do so. I have custody of my son which is from my soon to be ex husband and he misses his sister as well as I. I want to be taking care of our daughter and be involved in her life without having her father control everything and let his new girlfriend raise our daughter. He leaves our daughter with her all the time. I had him arrested for violation of a protection order on Feb 10 '09 because he was calling me and cursing at me. The day he got out on Feb 12 '09 he had me arrested for a violation of a protection order because on Feb 9 '09 I had went to his place to drop off our daughters bookbag for school and to drop off clothes that I had bought for her. I have the recording of him asking me to come over that morning to drop off our daughters bookbag. The cpo's have both been dropped because her father said if I would drop the cpo on him, then he would drop the one on me between my daughter and I. I am wanting to find out if I have any chance at regaining custody of our daughter. I know what could have happened and thank the lord everyday , that nothing happened to my children. I raised our daughter for 5 years with no problems until this. We are both unemployed now due to the economy but collect unemployment. I only have about $2,500 for an attorney but am willing to use it if I have to. Please help, I really need some advice on this situation.

You may need to prepare well and document everything and then with legal counsel go back into court.

Since custody of your child is at issue legal aid may help for free at this point. Custody fights can get expensive so some support from legal aid may help you out.

You might email world law also--they may have a few other low-cost options for you to consider.