In-Sight is an accredited member of the National Association of Child Contact Centres

What is the Supervised Contact Centre?

The Supervised Contact Centre is part of the Family Mediation Service (a registered charity). The contact centre offers an impartial, supported and safe environment for children from separated families to have contact with their parents or other important people in their lives.

If a Court has ordered supervised contact, it means that there is thought to be some risk to the safety and welfare of the child during contact and that an assessment of contact is required. For example, anger or hostility between separated parents may spill over and cause distress to the child during contact.

There may be issues around domestic violence, alcohol or drugs misuse, parenting skills or prolonged separation.

Staff at the centre aim to support, guide and where necessary intervene to ensure the physical and emotional wellbeing of the child. We aim to protect children and vulnerable adults from conflict and harm and to build and sustain positive relationships between children and their parents.

Facilities

We have a comfortably furnished, child centred room for contact, and a separate room for the resident parent. We have a kitchenette for making drinks and snacks, and an adult focused meeting room for planning and reviewing contact arrangements. We can also offer ground floor facilities for contact.

We have a wide variety of toys, games, books, arts and crafts materials, and a DVD player and computer games.

What happens?

During contact, the contact supervisor stays in sight and sound of the child at all times, assessing and making notes of what happens during contact. These notes can be seen by your CAFCASS officer or social worker to help them with the report they have to write for court.

Otherwise, information is confidential unless there is a question of a child or adult being at risk of danger. The CAFCASS officer or social worker will observe at least one contact.

Parents are invited to a meeting (separately if necessary) to plan the contact, ask any questions they may have and to give their agreement to the terms and conditions of the centre. This also gives them the chance to see the premises and meet the staff. These meetings also allow us to ask you for more information about your family and current situation. The resident parent brings the child to visit the centre and meet the staff so that this is familiar for them when they come for contact.

The resident parent stays at the centre during contact. Staff spend time with the resident parent whilst contact is taking place to offer support and advice. Staff also spend time with the contact parent before and after contact to talk about how the contact is going and discuss any issues or concerns.

There is usually a midway review meeting to talk about how contact is going and see if any changes to arrangements are needed. There is usually another meeting at the end of the contact sessions for staff to share their views about how the contact has gone.

We aim to be very clear with families about how we work and what we expect from them. We work in an open and honest way with families, so at the final meeting you will already know any concerns we have, as well as the bits we think have gone really well.

We strongly encourage you to ask questions if you are unsure about anything. It is important to emphasise that we do not take sides. Our focus is always the child and what is best for him or her.