SUPERVISED ACCESS

This article addresses the question of whether long-term supervised access is an appropriate solution when unsupervised access is unlikely to become possible in the future. The article assesses judicial decisions and theoretical commentary on this issue in light of the opinions and practices of service providers and in light of the best interest of the child standard. The opinions and practices of service providers were gleaned from published materials and from interviews with service providers at supervised access facilities in Vermont and New Hampshire and in Ontario, Canada. The supervised access facilities surveyed for this research were diverse in their practices and experiences but remarkably similar in their approach to long-term supervised access. Outside the scope of the research for this article was the question of whether the opinions and practices of the service providers at the facilities surveyed are representative, and this question requires further investigation .     

AN EVALUATION OF SUPERVISED ACCESS III

Although supervised access has become a more frequently used option within the custody and access domain over the last 10 years, no empirical literature has examined supervised access from the standpoint of its effect on the legal system. As part of a large-scale evaluation of Ontorio's Supervised Access Pilot Project, the present study sought the perceptions of the legal community and the courts regarding supervised access centers. A total of 14 lawyers and 13 judges participated in semistructured telephone interviews concerning supervised access cases in general, the function and impact of the supervised access program in their community, and their satisfaction with and recommendations regarding the center. Both lawyers and judges expressed high levels of satisfaction with the centers and believed that their availability resulted in savings to the legal system and reductions in hostility and conflict between parents. Implications and limitations of the study are discussed.     

AN EVALUATION OF SUPERVISED ACCESS II

Two studies examined reactions of family members to supervised access (SA) services. In Study 1, 121 users of SA services were interviewed about their satisfaction. A subsample was interviewed about family relationships and children's well-being, at Time 1 and 5 months later. In Study 2, 29 children attending SA services were interviewed. Results showed that both custodial and noncustodial parents were very satisfied with the centers. There was no evidence that relationships between ex-spouses or their attitudes toward one another improved over a 5-month period. Children attending centers showed a high level of externalizing symptomatology. Children were positive about their experiences, although older children felt that the centers were not well equipped for their age group. Although the aim of centers is to provide a safe place for children, some children still experience emotionally disturbing events. Most children had little understanding about why they were attending centers.     

AN EVALUATION OF SUPERVISED ACCESS I

This study describes the Supervised Access Pilot Project, implemented in 14 locations in Ontario, from the perspective of those offering the service and community organizations whose members use the service. Two services were offered: visits and exchanges. The average cost of a visit varied considerably across centers (range $15 to $309), a result that is partly attributable to economies of scale. Centers in large urban centers were more cost-efficient than those situated in small communities. Centers provided neutral and safe circumstances for visiting. Only 1.6 serious rule violations occurred during every 1,000 visits. It was estimated that about 3 out of every 10,000 persons used the service. Intake and safety procedures, essential to the smooth running of the centers, have been outlined. Staff fell that they would benefit from increased training in the areas of conflict resolution and the effects of divorce on family members.     

EXAMINING THE CONNECTION BETWEEN CHILD ACCESS AND CHILD SUPPORT

This article examines the connection between fathers' access to children and their maintaining child support. Also examined are various approaches to obtaining compliance with support orders. The effect of various factors on payment of support, such as frequency of contact, remarriage, and the length of time since the separation, is analyzed.     

AN EXPLORATORY STUDY OF SUPERVISED ACCESS AND CUSTODY EXCHANGE SERVICES

An exploratory outcome study to investigate the ability of a supervised access and custody exchange center to function as a safe visitation enforcement mechanism of the court was accomplished as part of a larger study investigating child well-being. During a 6-month period of program participation, frequency and consistency of noncustodial parents' access to children dramatically increased and interparental conflict significantly decreased, demonstrating that supervised visitation and custody exchange centers that function in partnership with family court during interim court processes can address the unmet needs of family court and high-conflict domestic disputant as well.     

AN EXPLORATORY STUDY OF SUPERVISED ACCESS AND CUSTODY EXCHANGE SERVICES

The detrimental effect of parental conflict in protracted child custody and visitation disputes is well established in the literature. However, little is known about the impact of parental conflict on children when visitation takes place in a protected setting. Part of a larger study that examined the broader issues related to parental and child involvement in a supervised access and custody exchange service, this article specifically explores the influence of parental participation on child well-being. This exploratory effort reveals that children's level of adjustment remained stable over 6 months of participation while visitation returned to court-ordered levels and interparental contact was precluded by staff intervention.     

ASSESSING FOR ALIENATION IN CHILD CUSTODY AND ACCESS EVALUATIONS

In-depth child custody evaluations can be critical in forming an accurate understanding of families in which alienation of children is a concern. By integrating interview and psychological test data of parents and children along with collateral information the evaluator can differentiate an alienated child from children with other forms of parental rejection and can form a thorough understanding of the multiple contributants to the alienation. This comprehensive and integrated understanding is then used to develop a clear and specific intervention plan.     

ASSESSING FOR ALIENATION AND ACCESS IN CHILD CUSTODY CASES

Alienated children in high-conflict (HC) custody cases differ from nonalienated children in HC custody cases. Efforts to assess and differentiate between the children should focus first, on establishing what differences do exist and then on what psychometrics are of most help in the assessment. Five categories of HC children and areas where HC children are all alike and where alienated and nonalienated children differ are reviewed. Psychometrics appropriate for the tasks of research and evaluation are proposed.     

ASSESSING MUTUAL PARTNER-ABUSE CLAIMS IN CHILD CUSTODY AND ACCESS CASES

This article explores issues associated with mutual claims of domestic violence in the context of research on gender and violence, and in the context of litigation tactics commonly employed by perpetrators in child custody and access cases. Quotations from parents involved in such cases illustrate why accurate assessment of mutual cliams requires complete information about social context and the analysis of patterns of domination, power and control in the relationship over time. Recent developments in Canadian law ought to enhance the ability of judges to take such evidence into account. The article aims to provide a lens through which to understand and assess such cases.     

SUPERVISED VISITATION

Reviews of case files for 676 families who received supervised visitation services at one of four programs and interviews with 201 participating parents provide a portrait of the families receiving services, their experiences, and the outcomes. Programs successfully serve a wide variety of families and garner high ratings of user satisfaction, but half of the families exit without formal closure. Families that drop out receive fewer court hearings and evaluations for the problems that brought them into the programs in the first place, suggesting that they may feel neglected. In most cases that formally exit the program, the visitation situation improves over time, although interviewed parents give mixed reports about their visitation situations after they leave the programs.     

USING CHILD DEVELOPMENT RESEARCH TO MAKE APPROPRIATE CUSTODY AND ACCESS DECISIONS FOR YOUNG CHILDREN

Decisions regarding custody and access are most often made without reference to the research on child development, although this literature can be useful in conceptualizing children's needs after separation and divorce. Research on attachment processes, separation from attachment figures, and the roles of mothers and fathers in promoting psychosocial adjustment are reviewed in this article. It concludes with a discussion of the implications for young children's parenting schedules.     

TRAUMATIZED CHILDREN IN SUPERVISED VISITATION

This article reviews the range of trauma experienced by many children in supervised visitation services and describes common themes in the development of their personalities from clinical and research findings. It then proposes a series of ways to structure supervised access services in order to help children feel psychologically safe in the relationship with the visited parent.     

THE EMERGING FORENSIC ROLE FOR WORK PRODUCT REVIEW AND CASE ANALYSIS IN CHILD ACCESS AND PARENTING PLAN DISPUTES

An emerging forensic service is that of conducting a work product review of a court‐appointed child custody evaluator's evaluation and report. If the reviewer determines there are serious deficiencies in the work product, then the reviewer will provide consultation to the retaining attorney and expert testimony. The reviewer usually is in a hybrid role of consulting/advising the retaining attorney, testifying, and educating the court. Ethical issues in providing forensic services and rebuttal testimony as a reviewer are discussed. Both reviewers and evaluators have a duty to be objective and balanced in their analyses of data and issues. Both types of experts should strive to be helpful to the court and try to serve the best interests of children. Ethical nuances involving review work are discussed. Evaluator and reviewer share the same dataset. Evaluators need to take care to keep a high quality case record with legible interview notes. Reviewers provide a monitoring function for the court or a function of forensic quality control so the court will not be misled by expert testimony of evaluators that is based on flawed data collection and/or analysis. A list of questions is presented for reviewers to use in scrutinizing the quality of the custody evaluation. A list of questions is presented for examining the quality of the reviewer's own work product. The importance of a case analysis and use of conceptual frameworks by evaluators and reviewers is discussed.     

PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS IN THE MANAGEMENT OF CHILD ABUSE ALLEGATIONS IN CUSTODY AND ACCESS DISPUTES IN THE FAMILY COURT

Child abuse allegations in custody and access disputes are serious matters and present family courts worldwide with major problems. This article reports a large research study just completed that investigated the way the Family Court of Australia managed child abuse cases. The study showed that such cases had become a substantial part of the court's current workload, their "core business" in fact. The families involved had many difficulties, including a history of family violence, and the present system was not appropriate for their particular problems. Thus, as new specialized court lead model of intervention was devised, based on principles relevant to family violence and incorporating the most effective strategies identified in the research.     

A MODEL FOR A SUPERVISED VISITATION PROGRAM

This article describes the Supervised Visitation Project run by the Victim Assistance Program of Akron, Ohio, a project that enables children to meet safely on a regular basis with their otherwise inaccessible noncustodial parents. This article establishes a need for supervised visitation, offers a structure for such a program, profiles clientele and staff, explains the available services–visitation, evaluation, mediation, and therapy/support–and presents conclusions based on the experience of the Akron program and the comparison and contrast of three other existing programs.