Supervised Visitation Centers save the community money, but more importantly, they save lives.  Florida now has over 30 such centers where judges can order one or more parent to visit their children under strict supervision.

The families involved in supervised visitation wouldn't be there if there weren't some kind of serious dysfunction in the family.  These visitation centers are scarce resources and are not intended for people who just can't get along when they are handing the children over to the other parent for the weekend.

Supervised Visitation Centers are there for families where there have been threats of violence, domestic violence, child abuse, instances or threats of parental abduction, drug abuse or charges of any of these. The Supervised Visitation Centers are designed to maintain the contact between the accused parent and the children while the court tries to determine what exactly should be done.  Supervised visitation centers also function as places where parents can visit children who have become wards of the state.

Law enforcement generally supports the visitation centers since they cut down on the number of domestic violence calls that are often the result of meetings in which parents have to exchange children.

Florida is in the process of developing a system of state-wide funding for the separate visitation centers, and also developing and standardizing a system of certification.

All the centers try to make their facilities "child-friendly " so that the child will feel as comfortable in this admittedly unnatural situation as possible.  Most have toys and games around and often other children playing.  But there are also observers who watch the interactions between the child and the parent to make sure that there is no abuse or attempt to harass the child.

Separate from the visitation centers themselves, Florida is fortunate to have a Clearinghouse on Supervised Visitation in the Florida State University School of Social Work.  This Clearinghouse does not run a Supervised Visitation Center, but instead, provides useful services for the centers around the state.  The Clearinghouse has even gained national attention and receives calls from all over the country asking for help in developing centers.

These Centers for Supervised Visitation are crucial in protecting children from abusive parents and protecting victims of domestic violence from contact with a potentially violent partner.

If you think, as I do, that Supervised Visitation centers are important, and the Clearinghouse for Supervised Visitation a crucial part of the system of protecting children, I urge you to contact your legislator and support the funding for both.