“Supervised visitation is exactly as it sounds. It is a visitation with a child that is supervised by somebody. And who is the somebody? Well, it can be a lot of people.

It can be a nonprofessional supervisor, which just means that it’s a family member, it’s a friend, it’s a neighbor, it’s somebody who is qualified to supervise a visit and who volunteers to supervise a visit.

It could also be a professional supervising monitor. What does that mean? Well, a professional means money so they’re compensated. That’s what they do for a living, and the difference would be what kind of supervision is necessary and what kind of supervision can be afforded by the parents.

Let’s start with the necessary part. Why would you ever supervise a visit? Why would you have a stranger watching a visit between a parent and a child? Well, maybe there’s a reason like there are allegations of domestic violence, mental illness, substance abuse, anything that would be detrimental to a child.

What would the person be supervising? The conduct of the parent. What’s happening, ensuring that the child isn’t abducted, the child isn’t harmed, other things like that. A professional monitor, someone who has more experience, who’s paid for this, who has training in this realm – they would be doing the same thing. They’d probably be taking notes. They’d probably be interjecting themselves if they needed to to prevent things from happening and they would very likely be testifying in court about what they observed.

The bottom line is that supervised visitation is a reality. It should not be something that is long duration. Meaning that whatever the issues are that result in the court ordering supervision should hopefully be resolved relatively soon. It’s oftentimes a stepping stone to unsupervised visitation, but it is used very frequently it is a powerful tool of the court to help ensure that when in doubt, a child will be safe and unharmed during the visit. And it’s something that if you are subjected to you really need to understand the process and understand your rights.”