Visitation Centers Help Speed Up Children's Court Cases, UF Researcher Finds

July 29, 1998

GAINESVILLE—Families who are referred to a supervised visitation center when abused or neglected children are removed from the home have their court cases resolved sooner than if a caseworker supervises family visits, a University of Florida researcher has found.

The centers also result in more frequent visits between parents and children, which helps to maintain family ties, said Daniel Perkins, in this month’s Journal of Family Relations.

“The supervised visitation centers help parents and children maintain a bond while courts resolve cases of abuse and neglect,” Perkins said. “This study found that the centers are effective in providing a desperately needed structure for visits that are safe.”

Earlier this decade, there were only one or two visitation centers statewide. Now there are more than 20. Perkins said their popularity is growing simply because they work.

“The reality is that caseworkers are overworked and have many other duties,” Perkins said. “A visitation center is only focused on scheduling visits and making sure they occur.”

A family visitation center is a location, usually a converted house, where a child and parent separated by the court can meet. The meeting is supervised, either by video monitors or by workers who remain nearby.

Visitation center meetings can take place after work hours and in a more informal, natural setting. The families can choose among several activities including games, cooking and sharing a meal, or watching television. Visits can last up to two hours.

Alicia Boynton, executive director of the visitation center in Ocala and a veteran of 17 years as a child welfare worker, said the centers work because they are neutral.

“Originally, children removed from their families would have visits at a caseworker’s office, in the lobby or a conference room. The person who removed the child would be present, so there was always a bit of animosity and friction based on the original allegation,” Boynton said.

“The difference at the visitation center is that it’s a more home-like setting, and that helps families work through their problems in a much quicker fashion than if they were visiting in an office,” Boynton said. “There can be more frequent visits and longer visits. Kids are able to be kids and parents are able to act like parents here.”

In Perkins’ study, only 17 percent of families referred to visitation centers failed to visit their children, whereas 71 percent of families referred to caseworkers failed to visit. In fact, families using visitation centers were likely to have 10 or more visits, about three times more than if caseworkers supervised visits.

Perkins said more frequent visits between parents and children give the courts more data to use in deciding a child’s future.

“With the visitation center, the courts know if a parent is visiting a child. If visits don’t occur, that’s equally important for a judge to know, and there’s better documentation of that at visitation centers,” Perkins said. “With a visitation center, a parent can show he or she is committed to positive behavior to get a child back.”

Of families who used visitation centers, 71 percent had their cases closed. Only 43 percent of cases were closed when visits were supervised by caseworkers. Cases that remain open linger in the system longer, increasing the possibility of emotional damage to the children and costing taxpayers more, Perkins said.

“With the visitation centers, we’re looking at the state having closure sooner, saving tax dollars on the court system by saving time in the court system,” Perkins said. “Caseworkers are happy, and the families that reunite do so sooner.

“So the child is not in limbo as long.”

Perkins said a U.S. General Accounting Office report in 1991 noted that only half of children who had regular family visits were in foster care for more than a year, compared with 90 percent of children who had infrequent visits. The longer children remain in foster care, the greater their chances of becoming emotionally disturbed, he said.

Of the closed cases, the most frequent outcome was reunification, followed by adoption, custody granted to a relative and other outcomes. Forty-two percent of visitation center families were reunified, compared with 29 percent of families supervised by caseworkers.

“You certainly have to give the parent the opportunity to keep or develop the bond,” Perkins said. “A parent is an important figure in a child’s life, and the breaking of that bond is a difficult thing for a child to overcome.

“The visitation centers allow the parental bond to continue or be fostered while a case works its way through the court system,” Perkins said. “Without visits, families can’t build or maintain a bond, and without visitation centers, the visits are not happening.”

The research was funded with a grant from the state Department of Children and Families.