Online Virtual Supervised Visitation During the COVID‐19 Pandemic: One State's Experience

• Date: 01 January 2021
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/fcre.12555
• Author: Kelly S. O'Rourke,Karen Oehme,Lyndi Bradley
• Published date: 01 January 2021

SPECIAL FEATURE: COVID-19

ONLINE VIRTUAL SUPERVISED VISITATION DURING THE COVID-19

PANDEMIC: ONE STATE’S EXPERIENCE

Karen Oehme, Kelly S. O’Rourke, and Lyndi Bradley

This paper describes how supervised visitation programs in Florida rapidly transitioned from in-person supervised visits to

virtual, online visits during the COVID-19 pandemic to protect the health of families and staff. Structured telephonic inter-

views and an online survey revealed that although most program directors had not previously developed guiding policies or

hosted such visits, within weeks they were providing hundreds of online “virtual visits”between children and their non-

custodial parents to maintain the crucial parent–child relationship in a safe manner. Vignettes from this data provide lessons

regarding parent and child reactions to virtual visits, advantages and disadvantages of virtual visits from the programs’per-

spectives, and levels of enthusiasm for using virtual visits going forward. In addition, the data includes recommendations for

new program guidelines and protocols for the ongoing use of virtual visits. Although it is too early to call these policies best

practices, the study does offer insight into the challenges and opportunities afforded by virtual visits and can inform disaster

planning that supervised visitation programs develop to prepare for inevitablefuture disruptions in services to families.

Practitioner’sKey Points:

Virtual visitation will become more common during disasters and pandemics because of limitations on in-person

contact.

Practitioners should be familiar with electronic platforms for virtual visits and the use of safety measures such as vir-

tual waiting rooms, muting and terminating calls, and virtual backgrounds to protect vulnerable parents. Parents may

need assistance to learn to use the electronic platform; practitioner should be ready for “practice”session(s).

Practitioners should be prepared to suggest activities and specif‌ic, age appropriate interaction for virtual visits; par-

ents will likely need help and become frustrated without guidance.

There are advantages and disadvantages to virtual visits. For example, when children are not in school, visits can be

f‌lexible beyond the limited 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. window that a traditional school schedule would allow. However, in-

person contact remains the gold standard for quality parent–child interaction.

Keywords: COVID-19;Electronic Parent-Child Contact; Pandemic; Supervised Visitation; Virtual Visitation.

Supervised visitation programs offer structured contact between a parent or caregiver and one or

more children in the presence of a third person responsible for observing and ensuring the safety of

those involved (Fla. Sta. Ann. § 753.01, 2019). These programs provide the courts with a

community-based option when balancing the need for positive parent–child interactions and critical

parental safety concerns (Thoennes & Pearson, 1999). The use of a neutral third party –typically a

social worker or child protection worker –to monitor such contact has been common in child mal-

treatment cases in which the child has been removed from the home and reunif‌ication is the goal.

For over two decades, these programs have also been used by courts responding to families

experiencing separation and divorce, when high conf‌lict between parents necessitates an “outside

resource”to allow the child contact with a noncustodial parent (Birnbaum & Alaggia, 2006). Courts

have also called on such programs where parental substance abuse, mental health issues, inadequate

Corresponding: koehme@fsu.edu

FAMILY COURT REVIEW, Vol. 59 No. 1, January 2021 131–143, doi: 10.1111/fcre.12555

© 2021 Association of Family and Conciliation Courts