Whether you are applying to restrict contact or fighting an application for a child arrangement order by your former partner you need to know whether the court is likely to order supervised contact and how best to present your case and protect your children. Children law solicitor, Angelique Holm, can answer your questions on supervised contact.
For children and family law advice call Angelique Holm on 0203 488 8620 or email
info@hopeholm.co.uk or visit our website Hopeholm Family Law.
What type of contact will the court order?
Contact between children and separated parents can range from:
- No-contact
- Indirect contact – limited to the sending or exchange of cards, presents or letters
- Supervised contact by a professional or family member
- Supported contact
- Contact ranging from a few hours a week to every other weekend plus mid-week contact and holiday contact
- Shared parenting
When making a child arrangement order and deciding on the level of contact the judge assesses what contact is in your child’s best interests. There is a statutory welfare checklist to help the judge consider all aspects. The checklist includes your child’s wishes and feelings, any harm your child has suffered or is at risk of suffering and how capable each parent is of meeting a child’s physical and emotional needs.
What is supervised contact?
Supervised contact is when a child sees a parent with the contact overseen by a third party. The contact supervisor could be a professional, such as a social worker or a staff member at a contact centre. Alternatively, contact could be supervised by a family member.
The supervisor’s job is to ensure a child’s safety during contact. This could be because of the risk of child abduction, historical physical or domestic abuse or concern that unless the contact takes place in the presence of a third party the child may be exposed to emotional abuse through hearing inappropriate comments.
Why will the court order supervised contact?
You may not want contact to take place because of your perception of the risk to your child. The judge needs to balance the assessed risk with the general view that it is in a child’s best interests to maintain contact with both parents. The court may conclude that the risk can be managed through contact being supervised.
The court will need to consider the level of supervision necessary to safeguard your child in light of the level of risk. The easiest type of supervision to organise is monitoring by a family member but you may not be satisfied that the family member understands the extent of the risk or will act to protect. The alternative is contact supervised in a contact centre or by a social worker.
Supervision of contact at an early stage in a child arrangement order application can help the parent seeking contact. For example, if the professional supervisor’s minutes indicate a good relationship between parent and child with the child appearing at ease during the contact session. Some contact centres will prepare reports for court use.
In some family situations, contact will remain supervised but in others, a judge may take the view that after a period of interim supervised contact, it is appropriate to move on to supported contact or unsupervised contact visits.
What is supported contact?
Supported contact is where contact is observed rather than supervised. The observer will not be making notes about the contact visit. An example of supported contact is where a family member agrees to facilitate contact at their home so the parents have support with the handover and contact takes place in neutral territory. Other examples include community organisations that offer to facilitate contact at local venues whilst making it clear that the contact will only be loosely observed by volunteers.
Supervised or supported contact?
The level of supervision or support needed during contact comes down to an assessment of risk. If neither parent has applied to the family court for a child arrangement order the risk assessment will be undertaken by the parent trying to limit the time spent by the other parent with the child. That risk assessment may be informed by the views of social services if the family have been referred to the local authority because of one parent’s risk factors. For example, domestic violence in the relationship or one parent’s reliance on drugs or alcohol or the fear that a parent may take the child overseas if allowed unsupervised contact.
Deciding on supervised contact
The family court encourages parents to reach an agreement on parenting arrangements without either parent applying to the court for a child arrangement order. Parents are advised to try non-court-based resolution options unless the situation is urgent or the child is at immediate risk. For example, if a child is at risk of being taken overseas if contact takes place on an unsupervised basis or if a parent needs a non-molestation order before they feel safe arranging contact handover.
A family law solicitor can advise you on all the factors a family law judge will consider when deciding on whether contact should be supervised and, if so, how it should progress. It can be helpful to speak to a specialist family lawyer so you know your rights and to give you the confidence to negotiate on supervised contact or to say that unless your ex agrees to supervised contact they will need to apply to court for a child arrangement order.
For advice on child arrangement orders and resolving family law disputes call Angelique Holm on 0203 488 8620 or email info@hopeholm.co.uk or visit our website Hopeholm Family Law.