Key Factor #4 for Hannah's House Professional Supervised Visitation Services: Team Approach

When we began our research for program development in 1988, we found that one of the first common concerns expressed by the majority of parents, extended family members and professionals in the community related to the bias of professional monitors.

Users of the services experienced the providers as "taking sides." Sometimes it was a perception and sometimes it was an accurate report. We realized that there was no way in family disputes to ensure that both parties had a positive customer experience. We also realized that we had to develop a service delivery system that controlled for the perception or the reality of a professional provider "taking sides."

We decided to use a Team Approach to service delivery. This seemed like the best way to ensure that there were multiple perspectives and experiences of each family receiving services. It is human nature to become accustomed to a situation, to begin to generalize from our past experience in that situation, and then to lose accuracy and completeness in the experience.

We recognized that everyone has biases, prejudices, beliefs, and values that filter our daily experiences. It made sense to us that multiple professionals interacting with the same family would produce a much more accurate picture of parent-child relationships over time.

We also recognized that we all have had the experience of instantly liking or disliking someone. We knew this would happen for staff members and for clients. We decided early on that these responses would not dictate staffing assignments.

Staff members needs to be able to observe and document accurately regardless of personal reactions to someone. Skill development for a professional includes learning how to self-observe negative reactions to a person or behavior and then document without prejudice or editing.

Parents need to focus on just spending time with their children. Countless times over the past 27 years, parents have complained about the prejudice of a staff member. When we review the notes in these cases, 9 out of 10 times we find that the documentation provided a picture of a good parent and a positive parent-child relationship.

The parent was having a negative reaction to the Team Member and made the assumption that it meant the person didn't like the parent and that the Team Member would document with a negative tone. Imagine if we changed Team Members or assigned Team Members based on the requests of a parent. That would be bias or at the very least the appearance of bias.

Hannah's House has successfully used the Team Approach to forensic service delivery for over 27 years. We do assign one staff person to particular cases but only when there is a clearly documented medical reason for such an assignment.

We are the eyes and ears of the judge who will never meet the children, at least in most cases. We have a legal, moral, and ethical obligation to provide the clearest possible picture of the family. The Team Approach helps us meet all of these obligations in a forensically validated manner.

Key Factor #3 for Hannah's House Professional Supervised Visitation Services: Clear Policies and Procedures

Since 1988, Hannah's House has provided forensic support services to families involved in family court cases the San Diego Superior Court.

We started very small with just one family. We consulted with professionals in the community from different ares of interest:
Legal
Mental Health
Medical
Education
Law Enforcement
Employee Assistance
Nonprofit

We also identified a large group of consumers who had used forensic support services in communities throughout the country, and conducted individual interviews and surveys to determine what had helped families and what had hurt families.

It quickly became clear that there were several basic elements that had to be present in any effort to help these families:

1 Philosophy of inclusion of both parents

2 Goal of normalizing divorce, separation, and child sharing

3 Equal treatment of both parents ordered to supervised visitation

4 Focus on the here and now for parents visiting children - references to the past or the future was stressful for the child

5 Sensitivity to the appearance of bias or the appearance of a conflict of interest

6 Routine and predictability was essential for all family members

Fortunately, the co-founders of the organization came out of a military background where clear policies and procedures provided a sense of stability, continuity and teamwork.

The organization was developed with these 6 basic elements as the cornerstone. Clear, written policies and procedures were created between 1988 and 1992 as service delivery to families increased.

A community advisory group composed of the interdisciplinary team of professionals drafted policies, reviewed the implementation with families as they received services, and refined the procedures to ensure maximum effectiveness.

Many of the polices and procedures created during those early years remain unchanged today. California did not have standards for the delivery of professional supervised visitation services until 1998, originally Rules of Court 36.2, not 5.20.

Hannah's House was already meeting and exceeding those 1998 standards when they came into being. The only changes required were agreements with local law enforcement and specific abduction prevention policies that were required for agencies.

The definition of supervised visitation in the law is "contact between a noncustodial party and one or more children in the presence of a neutral third person."

There is no mention of anyone other than parent, child, neutral. By law, there is no inclusion of guests. No extended family members. No blended family members. No friends.

This basic definition is probably the best example of why clear policies and procedures are essential. There is no way to address the matter of guests in an unbiased way that ensures there is no discrimination in favor of or against a consumer unless the same rules apply to every single case and every single request.

There are 17 standards in the law, and 90 sub-standards in the Calfornia law governing the work of the professional provider of supervised visitation. Despite this attention in the law, this is a profession that is still largely unregulated.

Consumers have little or no protection from professional providers who do not follow the law, especially if the consumer has no idea that they are operating illegally. That is why it is critical for the consumer to know the law and know the legal standards.

Take a copy of Family Code 3200.5 and Rules of Court 5.20 to your orientation meeting with the professional provider you have chosen. The provider should be able to tell you the policy and procedures they have in place for each of the 17 standards and each of 90 sub-standards.

The provider must have a written contract signed by each client that details the policies and procedures of the provider. If you, the consumer, find that the provider is unable to tell you what the policies and procedures are that they follow to ensure compliance with the law, don't use them for services.

Policies and procedures established, implemented, and maintained by the professional provider of supervised visitation is the only protection the individual family member has that the child will be safe and court orders will be respected.

San Diego Superior Court does not require any proof from any person on Court Resource List. You, the parent, are the only person who can ensure the the law is followed.

Unfortunately, there are still many attorneys who are unfamiliar with the standards for the provision of these services. If you have an attorney, make sure that your attorney is familiar with the standards and that he or she is recommending a professional who is, in fact, in compliance.

The law is in place to ensure that the services are delivered properly, that orders are followed and that children are protected. Professional providers of supervised visitation should be held to the standards they have already sworn to under penalty of perjury when they made application to be included on the list provided to consumers on the San Diego Superior Court website Court Resource List.

Key Factor #1 for Hannah's House Professional Supervised Visitation Services: CONTROLLING FOR BIAS

California Family Code 3200.5 and California Rules of Court 5.20 establish standards for professional providers of supervised visitation (PPSV). A search engine will readily find both. Consumers in need of these services need to understand the law.

One of the requirements of the PPSV is following all aspects of the law. Controlling for bias is one of those requirements.

Bias is a prejudice in favor of or against one thing, person, or group compared with another, usually in a way considered to be unfair. In family law cases with an order for supervised visitation, it is a PPSV who is prejudiced in favor of or against one party, the Petitioner, or the Respondent.

The only way to control for bias is to create a process that treats both parties equally from the very beginning.

Hannah's House conducts a screening with both parties prior to any face-to-face meetings. The screening may be done over the phone or via the website. The consumer chooses.

The screening is exactly the same for every person who completes it. The only differences occur because of different facts in each case. Each party on every case is given an equal opportunity to provide the necessary information.

The intake and orientation is the same for every person who completes it. Parents attend an in-person meeting. They will be in a group that includes both residential parents and visiting parents, but two parties to the same case will not participate in the same intake and orientation meeting.

Hannah's House provides supervised visitation and supervised exchanges. The variations in the intake process relate to the difference in those services.

The goal of the intake, orientation, and legal review process is to learn about the case, ensure both parties understand their rights and responsibilities, and to figure out how to keep stress down for the children.

Children are required to attend a Turtle Tour orientation. This provides the child with the opportunity to meet the Human and the Animal Staff, and to explore the family rooms, art and music room, and the snack shop!

The Turtle Tour is required so that children know in advance where they will be coming and what the place and the people are like. This helps control for bias because staff is assured the child is familiar with the setting so staff can just focus on the transitions from one parent to another.

100% of contact between Staff and clients is documented. Email, phone logs, and activity reports are completed at the time of contact.

All activity reports are reviewed weekly by a Quality Assurance Team in a regular QA meeting. The purpose of the review is to ensure accuracy and completeness in the documentation, and to identify any client or staff discrepancies that require intervention beyond that which occurred during service delivery.

The QA team consists of the Assistant Executive Director, Program Director, Program Manager, Program Coordinator - Scheduling, Program Coordinator - Reports and Record Keeping, and any PPSV who wants to attend.

Clients and staff members with discrepancies that occurred during service delivery during the previous week will be contacted by a staff person to address the discrepancy. Typically this contact occurs within 24-48 hours following the meeting.

There is a Quality Control function built into the system to ensure that the discrepancy contacts are made, completed, and documented for each client and staff person identified.

Hannah's House is a forensic social service agency where everything that is said and done can potentially become part of legal proceeding. We take that responsibility seriously and the first step in ensuring forensic accuracy in our service delivery is controlling for bias.

Key Factors for Hannah’s House Professional Supervised Visitation Services

Hannah's House provide services to parents who mistrust and/or dislike each other. Our job is to be a professional neutral. We must establish rapport and some basic trust with each parent, without creating mistrust on the part of the other parent.

Parents come to us from an adversarial experience where one of them 'won' and one of them 'lost'.

Sometimes the 'winner' comes out of court with the idea that they are in control of the situation. It is our very difficult job to help that parent understand that the judge has made orders that require both parents to follow laws and cooperate for the purpose of coparenting the child.

Sometimes the 'loser' comes out of court with the idea that they are criminal or least being treated like a criminal. It is our very difficult job to help that parent understand that the judge has made orders that require both parents to follow laws and cooperate for the purpose of coparenting the child.

In other words, the judge has made orders that accord rights and responsibilities for parenting and coparenting that apply equally to both parents.

We focus on several important factors to accomplish our goal of building rapport and creating trust:

1 Controlling for bias
2 Preventing conflict of interest
(including appearance of conflict of interest)
3 Clear policies and procedures
4 Team approach
5 Forensic reports and record keeping
6 Grievance policy/procedure
7 Standardization

Over the next several days I will talk about each one of these factors and discuss the policies, procedures and rationale for each one of them.

Don't Become an Adversary to Your Child!

Family breakup is a disruptive process that feels chaotic for all family members, and traumatic for some. Parents are responsible to work together to make sure that everyone in the family makes a successful transition to a new family structure that feels safe and secure and loving.

Some parents are unable or unwilling to accept responsibility for this basic parenting role. Instead they invest energy in blame, sabotage and competition. The traditional adversarial Family Court process sets up and reinforces this win/lose approach to sharing children, resulted in children who feel divided and conflicted. It is easy for parents to get swept up in the contest to present the most compelling story to a theoretically neutral judge who decides whether Mom or Dad is the most convincing. In criminal systems, this process is sometimes referred to as accusatorial.

When accused, our immediate reaction is to defend. Especially when our bond to our child is at stake. Yet, investing in defense, documentation, zealous representation and advocacy does not leave resources of time or money for parenting. Children can't be put on a shelf while Mom and Dad fight it out. As difficult as it is, at least one parent needs to focus on the immediate daily needs and routines of the child or the outcome will be defeat for the little ones, regardless of which parent "wins."

You chose each other to co-create a child. The history and the details of your personal choice are matters for you to explore and understand, not stories to be used to injure, exploit, and harm your child.

Here is a list of "don'ts" for you, if you are the parent who is serious about protecting your child and truly placing your child's needs above the competition and battle between you and your coparent:

Don't say negative things to your children about your coparent.
Don't interfere with or limit your child's time with your coparent.
Don't block phone messages, letters, cards, or gifts from your coparent.
Don't make it difficult for your child to reach and communicate with your coparent.
Don't express displeasure when your child talks about or shows pictures of time with your coparent. Don't detach from your child when he shows affection for or says positive things about your coparent.
Don't say or imply that your coparent doesn't love your child.
Don't create situations that pressure your child to reject your coparent or to choose you instead.
Don't say things to make your child feel unsafe or insecure with your coparent.
Don't confide in your child about adult matters that your child shouldn't know, like marital concerns or financial disputes.
Don't ask your child to spy on or secretly obtain information about your coparent and report back to you.
Don't ask your child to keep secrets from your coparent about things your coparent should have been informed about.
Don't refer to your coparent by their first name or by a formal address and their last name (e.g. Ms Smith) when talking to your child.
Don't refer to your new partner or spouse as Mom or Dad and expect your child to do the same.
Don't pressure your child to rely only on your opinion and approval.
Don't encourage your child to disregard or think less of your coparent's rules, values, and authority.
Don't make it hard for your child or make your child feel bad about spending time with your coparent's extended family.
Don't create situations in which your child will be angry with or hurt by your coparent.

Many parents who read this list find themselves repeatedly saying or thinking "But..." "But..." "But..." That is the nature of an adversarial/accusatorial system of problem resolution. When you find yourself defending and reacting, take a deep breath and shift your focus and energy to your child!

Focus on being positive, taking the high road, and being fully present to love and nurture your child when you are with them.

Who Taught You That?!

Don't make disparaging remarks about the other parent in front of your child.

Don't use your child to gather information about the other parent's home.

Most co-parents in family court have heard these cautions from a judge, lawyer, mediator, or counselor. Some parents comply and some don't. Some parents at least make the effort to comply and some don't.

A prohibition against such behavior is routinely made a part of court orders which -- at least in theory -- means contempt of court if a parent does engage in such behavior.

Some parents use a work-around, either consciously or unconsciously, to find a way to implicitly criticize the other parent. Here are some variations:
Who taught you that?
Where did you learn that?
You never did that before!

These are not so subtle ways of disparaging the other parent. The child can tell from both the question and the tone of voice that someone in his or her life is clearly doing something wrong. And, it's clear to the child that the parent asking him or her the question would NEVER allow the child to learn something like that because the parent asking the question ALWAYS does everything the right way!

Some of the problems with this approach are obvious. The most obvious is that moral superiority and moral outrage are not very attractive on anyone! One problem may not be so obvious. The parent in this situation is assuming a couple of things. First, that the behavior of the child is someone's fault other than the child and second, that the child would not be doing this unless the family ____________________________ . You fill in the blank. The filled in blank is some version of family life being different now than it used to be.

What's the problem? The parent is letting the child know that he or she either isn't responsible for their own behavior, or is communicating that they just can't help it. However, most of the time, children's behavior is developmentally appropriate to their age, personality, sibling and peer status, and development in a number of areas. Rarely is a child's behavior only the result of one person or a particular life situation. Blaming someone (like the other parent or their friends/relatives) or blaming a life situation (like separation, divorce, or a restraining order) gives the Child an excuse to behave badly. Even if there is a direct link between a divorce and a Child's unkind/destructive behavior toward others, the problem is still the behavior and the Child is responsible and needs to learn the natural consequences of that behavior.

If your child spits in your face, which of these actions do you think addresses the issue:
(a) at the first opportunity, write a note to the parent in other home asking them to please tell the Child not to spit in your face;
(b) ask the Child "Who taught you to do that?"
(c) put the Child on time out immediately and limit his or her contact with other people for the rest of the day because of the choice he or she made.

Hopefully, you picked the third option. It's the behavior that is the problem, not where it came from or who is responsible or what it might mean. If the behavior is happening right now with you, then it is your problem. And it is your responsibility to address it in a firm manner that clearly communicates your expectations about the child's behavior. If you allow the behavior to occur without a consequence or without an adequate consequence because of your personal conflicts about your adult life, then the Child gets the message that it's okay to engage in bad behavior because there is someone else to blame and someone else to hold responsible.

Respect your Child and his or her ability to learn, care and make positive life choices. Empower your Child to claim responsibility for his or her own behavior. Nurture your Child's self-esteem by assuming he or she has the ability to become a competent partner in relationship to other people.