SUPERVISED ACCESS

• Date: 01 October 1999
• Published date: 01 October 1999
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/j.174-1617.1999.tb00547.x
• Author: Martha Bailey

SUPERVISED

ACCESS

A

Long-Term

Solution?

Martha Bailey

This article addresses the question

of

whether long-term supervised access is an appropriate

so-

lution when unsupervised access is

unlikely

to become possible in thefiture. The article assesses

judicial decisions and theoretical commentary

on

this issue in light

of

the opinions andpractices

of

service providers and in light

of

the best interest

of

the child standard. The opinions andprac-

tices

of

service providers were gleanedfrom published materials

and

from

interviews with serv-

ice providers at supervised access facilities in Vermont and New Hampshire and in Ontario,

Canada. The supervised access facilities surveyed for this research were diverse

in

their prac-

tices and experiences but remarkably similar in their approach to long-term supervised access.

Outside the scope

of

the research for this article was the question

of

whether the opinions and

practices

of

the

service providers at the facilities surveyed are representative,

and

this question

requires further investigation.

SOME COURTS AND COMMENTATORS

SUPERVISED ACCESS

IS

INAPPROPRIATE

HAVE SUGGESTED THAT LONG-TERM

Supervised access is ordered to develop, reestablish, or maintain a rela-

tionship between a child and a parent, or other relative, generally with the ex-

pectation that unsupervised access will at some point become possible. Some

courts and commentators have said that supervised access is not appropriate

as a long-term measure. Ontario Provincial Court Judge Norris Weisman

wrote that supervised access is “a temporary and time-limited measure de-

signed to resolve a parental impasse over access,” not “a long-term remedy.”’

Lawyer Karen Oehme, cochair of the Family Visitation Program of

Tallahas-

see, Florida, said, “Attorneys should realize that institutional supervised visi-

tation

is

not a long-term solution in most family court cases, and that the pro-

grams should not be thought of as a substitute for addressing the underlying

problems that resulted in the need for supervised visitation in the first place.”*

In a

1992

case, the Ontario

Court

of Appeal also emphasized that super-

vised access should not be “a permanent feature of a child’s life” and decided

Author’s

Note:

This article was originally presented at

the

First International Conference

on

Child Access Services, Paris, November

5,

1998.

FAMILY

AND

CONCILIATION

COURTS

REVIEW,

Vol.

37

No.

4,

October

1999 478-486

Q

1999

Sage

Publications,

Inc.

478