The Supervised Visitation Parent Support Program

A Service of the Greater Lowell Family Resource Collaborative
 Provided by MSPCC & Funded through The Department of Social Services

"There can be more frequent visits and longer visits. Kids are able to be kids and parents are able to act like parents here."

                 Florida Visitation  Center Director

What is Supervised Visitation?

Supervised Visitation is both a Service and a Place.

Our Place provides a home-like setting for visitation while maintaining security and safety for all participants. The visiting rooms resemble the rooms in a home, with a kitchen, living room and playroom. At the same time, precautions are taken to assure that the conduct and safety of participants is not at risk. This is done as unobtrusively as possible.

The Service provided by Visiting Supervisors is the facilitation, supervision, and guidance of ongoing visits. Visiting Supervisors provide neutral observation of visits which helps assess parenting skills and, when appropriate, provide hands-on parent training in a way that has not been available in the past.

"The visitation Centers allow the parental band to continue or be fostered while a case works its way through the court system. Without visits, families can't build or maintain a bond. And without visitation centers, the visits are not happening."

                          Daniel F. Perkins
   University of Florida Researcher


Supervised Visitation is an effective new tool to decrease children’s stays in foster care.

Reducing the amount of time that children spend in the foster care system so that they can return home to birth parents or to relatives or an adoptive family, is one of the most constant goals and challenges for the child welfare system and for society.

A study of supervised visitation in Florida found that of the cases studied, 71% of those with supervised visitation were closed at the end of the study as opposed to only 43% of the cases that did not have supervised visitation.

The outcomes for those closed cases were even more encouraging. Forty-two percent of these cases resulted in reunification with birth parents as compared to 29% of those families where there was no supervised visitation.

"with a visitation center, a parent can show he or she is committed to positive behavior to get a child back."		 Supervised Visitation puts greater focus on the actual relationship and the interaction between parents and children in a professionally staffed environment. Parents are gently guided, when appropriate, to learn new ways to meet their children’s needs for attention, structure and affection. In turn, parents are immediately rewarded by their children’s responses. Every incremental success adds to a foundation that will support the parent/child relationship long after the child returns home.

 

The Supervised Visitation Parent Support Program
Room B30 --175 Cabot St., Lowell, MA 01854
(978) 937-3087


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