Court Ordered Supervised Access in Public Access Supervised Centre

Pursuant to section 34 of the Children’s Law Reform Act, a court may give such directions as it considers appropriate for the supervision of custody or access by a person, a children’s aid society or other body.

My focus here is on access supervised by a Supervised Access Centre.

Supervised access orders are made to address the best interest of the child by addressing a parent’s parenting skills, reintegration or introduction of child with the parent, protect the child from an abusive/neglectful parent or to protect the child from a parent with substance abuse issues.

Supervised access is meant to be temporary in order to address the concerns mentioned above and to allow the court to monitor the access with a view of terminating the supervised access if the above concerns have been addressed. The court monitors the progress of supervised access through access reports that are usually generated contemporaneously with the visits are taking place.

Your family lawyer should be able to assist you navigate the process of supervised access. In my practise, I have observed that if a parent does the following points itemized below that have generally led to favourable reports to the parent that is being supervised:

  1. Commencing the access intake process immediately after the order is made to set up the access.
  2. Being on Time.
  3. Not cancelling a scheduled access unless of emergency.
  4. Bringing appropriate items to the visit for the child. For instance, change of clothes, food/drink and toys.
  5. Engaging the child while visiting and address to the child’s needs as they arise.
  6. Being polite to the staff and following their directions.

Jane Mukongolo is a Divorce Lawyer in Toronto. You may visit her website for more details at www.jnmlaw.com