Organisational Manual
The aim of this organizational manual is to outline the policy context and provide the minimum operational requirements for practice principles expected for the delivery of services offered by Family Contact Services. It also provides support for a systematic and consistent approach to service provision.
Contents
About Family Contact Service
Roles and obligations of Family Contact Service
Objectives for Family Contact Service
Opening Hours
When Should Supervised Visits Occur/be provided/can others attend?
Supervision / Facilitation Categories
Cancellation of Supervision
Safety
Responsibility of the Child during Contact Visits
Premises / Location of Contact Visits
Alcohol and Drugs While Visiting or Picking up a Child
Activities during Visits
Conversations with the Child
Medication and Diet
Feedback tothe Parents
Role of the Owner
Role of the Senior Facilitators
Role of the Facilitators
Staff Professional Development
Neutrality and Conflict of Interest of all workers
Client diversity and cultural sensitivity
Record Keeping Policies and Procedures
Routine Reviews
Suspending or Ceasing Service Provision
Dress Requirements
Administration costs
Gifts for children
About Family Contact Service
Family Contact Service are available 365 days a year and cover all areas of Brisbane including surrounding areas and all areas of Melbourne, Geelong and rural areas of Victoria. Family Contact Service provides experienced and qualified contact supervisors who are required to have a Working with Children Certificate for supervised contact when there is Family Court Orders or Children’s Court Orders or mutual agreement between the parties including Parenting Order in place or other mutual agreement made between parents.
Family Contact Service is an outreach service. All supervised contacts occur within the community or at a parent's home providing this is in thechild's best interests. This decision will be made by the owner of the Family Contact Service with the residential parent’s agreement. All decision making is guided by the Family Court orders and current legislation.
Family Contact Service closely supervises contacts and maintains case notes via documenting observations throughout the contact. All case notes are required to be impartial and factual. Family Contact Service is a highly professional service with explicit and clear boundaries. While we are empathic towards parents, we are very clear that our role is outside the legal decision making process. However ourprofessional observations may assist the Court in making decisions regarding children's best interests. Nevertheless when trust is gained, parents sometimes desire to utilise staff knowledge of the service system.
Roles and obligations of Family Contact Services
The 1995 amendments to the Family Law Act 1975 emphasised that it is extremely important for children to continue to have an on-going relationship (where possible) with both parents and significant others (siblings, family members and community members). Because of this, Family Contact Services believes that their role is to not only facilitate contact but to include interventions that are child and family focused in order to ascertain long term and sustainable arrangements for family contact visits. Interventions included are: detailed intake and assessment procedures, regular reviews, writing of extensive case notes, court documents (where required) and feedback. All of these are aimed at creating individually tailored service provisions for families. Family Contact Service believes by completing these interventions we can support families to move onto self-managed arrangements, providing it is safe to do so and is court ordered. Upon being accepted into our service, Family Contact Service will endeavor to consider what is in the best interest of the child/ren while also meeting the needs of both the child and the family.
Objectives for Family Contact Service
The main objective of Family Contact Service’s is to enable a child/ren of separated parents to engage in contact visits in a safe and non-threatening manner, with the parent they do not live with. Particularly in circumstances where parents are unable to manage their own contact arrangements. When separated parents cannot meet without conflict, Family Contact Service workers will make arrangements in collecting the chil/ren from the residential parent so the parents have no contact in order to avoid unnecessary conflict and trauma to the child/ren. Family Contact Service uses an outreach approach of providing a safe, neutral venue within the community for contact visits and/or changeover
Family Contact Service endeavours to ensure that the child/ren’s
Best interests are kept central to the contact process. This ensures delivery of services that are safe and appropriate for all parties (both parents and child/ren) while also providing the child/ren with the opportunity of re-establishing or maintaining a meaningful relationship with both parents and other significant persons in their lives.
Family Contact Service, through its available services, aims to:
- Promote the best interest of the child including the welfare (physically and emotionally) of the child
- Ensure contact does not expose or re-expose the child/ren to harm, danger or trauma
- Be an independent third party neutral to both parents
- Provide contact venues that are easily accessible via private and public (where possible) transport
- Facilitate parent and child (including sibling) interaction that is appropriate in nature and age appropriate for the child/ren
- Assist to help parents overcome factors in their interaction which has an adverse impact on contact e.g. fighting in front of child/ren
This is done through Family Contact Service’s ability to:
- Ensure relevant staff training and supervision is available to staff.
- Listen to the child/ren’s needs /concerns and addressing them where possible.
- Including information about children’s needs in case notes, feedback to the parents (if and where possible) and assessments including case reviews.
- Organise venues that are appropriate to the child/ren’s age and skill level.
- Being understanding (where possible) in regards to cultural needs by providing a venue that is sensitive to the cultural needs of the child e.g. does the venue offer culturally appropriate food or does it allow food to be brought in?
Opening Hours
The opening hours which Family Contact Service operates varies depending upon client needs. Family Contact Service is available 7 days a week 365 days a year from 9.00am until 6.00pm Monday to Friday and on weekends as is required.
When Should Supervised Visits Occur/be Provided/can others attend?
The decision regarding whether it is in the best interest of the child or appropriate for the child to have contact visits with a parent and extras including siblings and significant others will generally be made by the courts. In cases where there are no restrictions on a court order of others attending the visits, the owner of Family Contact Service will make this decision taking into account case information of concerns and risks including the progress of the case during supervised visits. Despite this, Family Contact Services maintains the right to decide which cases we will accept and which cases we will decline based on the intake and assessment process. As part of the intake and assessment process Family Contact Service will decide what type of contact is required for each particular case (Types / levels of supervision descriptions below) and appoint staff accordingly. However Family Contact Service holds the right to review and change the level of supervision required including suspending or ceasing contact visits at any time should this be deemed necessary or throughout the regular review periods. Family Contact Service will immediately suspend or cease contact visits if it is assessed by staff members that the child is being or is in danger of being, adversely affected by the arrangements or any other risk factors that are unmanageable.
Supervision / Facilitation Categories
There are four broad types of supervision / visit facilitation including:
Low risk factors: this is appropriate for cases that have had a thorough assessment and a series of previous positive documented visits that support the conclusion that risk to the child/ren is minimal. Cases that are considered low risk may include supervision of changeovers or supervision of contact. Supervision of contact for this type consists of general monitoring and facilitation of a safe place for contact visits. Family Contact Service aims to promote healthy relationships and improve or develop an ability to eventually independently manage visit arrangements.
High risk factors: High risk supervision is assessed as appropriate in cases that involve;
High degrees of parental conflict.
Inadequate parenting capacity e.g. when a parent shows little of no capacity to keep the child safe or to put the child’s best interest first above their own.
Manageable abduction risks e.g. the potential of abduction is limited due to controlled environments for example play centres have one way in and one way out therefore this would make it harder for a parent to abscond with a child without the staff member being aware.
Low risk factors of violence (verbal, emotional and/or physical) towards staff, child/ren or other parent.
Low risk of parents presenting while under the influence of a substance (drugs and/or alcohol)
Parent who have psychological problems that are being effectively managed and the parent is taking any required medication.
Family Contact Service aims to ensure the safety and welfare of the child/ren and the safety of vulnerable parents while also supporting the child/parent relationship during the visits. The long term goal for these cases is to reduce conflict and eventually enable parents to have an amicable relationship so that arrangements for visits can eventually be made without the need of services if the court decides.
Higher risk factors: Cases that are assessed as having higher risk factors must have appropriately qualified and highly vigilant staff to attend the supervised contact visit. Higher risk factors are when a client will have one or more of the above risk factors plus more serious risks or difficulties than those noted above are assessed. As an example; allegations of perpetrated family violence and/or sexual abuse issues will automatically put a client in the higher risk category. In most cases, at this level, independent management of contact will not be a viable therefore a longer term of service is required. All higher risk cases are required to be closely monitored in order to ensure the parent/child visit including the appropriateness of continuing the visit remains under constant review. This ensures the child does not get re-traumatised or re-victimised during contact visits. These cases also require closer monitoring and reviews in general.
Therapeutic supervision: is provided by a senior worker with relevant tertiary qualifications. Services need to have comprehensive assessment processes in place. These cases often have high and complex levels of trauma therefore often result in high and complex behavioral issues from children. This often complicates the child/parent relationship and often requires strength based therapeutic approach. These cases often require in depth case notes, regular reviews and longer term of service, in some cases indefinite use of service.
Cancellation of Supervision
When a worker from Family Contact Service is in attendance to supervise a session and a child refuses to attend or the session ends earlier the worker will stillbe paid two hours of the session time and the observational report cost which the supervised parent will pay. In situations when sessions are cancelled on the day and a doctor’s certificate is produced to confirm that the child is unwell on that day the cancellation fee will be waived. If no doctor’s certificate is produced two hours’ cancellation fee will be charged to the residential parent.
Safety
It is a high priority for Family Contact Service to provide physical and emotional safety and security for children, families and staff at all times. HOWEVER, it is important to remember that a staff member cannot legally physically restrain a visiting parent from removing the child from a contact visit even if this is against the party’s agreement or an order of a court. Supervisors will not be instructed nor expected to physically restrain any person from removing a child as this could result in serious and unacceptable harm to the staff member. Should this situation occur ALL staff members are expected to immediately call the police for assistance and should co-operate at all times with the police in order to relocate the child. Staff members should keep in mind that unless a criminal offence has been committed (breach of a family violence order, breach of a custody order or breach of a court order), police may not have the legal authority to stop a visiting parent absconding with the child. Although police may investigate if a child is wrongly removed from a centre or not returned after a visit, where there is a concern for the safety of the child. The staff member should also, in a timely manner, notify the parent that the child lives with in order to provide the parent with information and support.
Responsibility of the Child during Contact Visits
In situations where the primary parent is able to be in contact with the visiting parent then the responsibility for the care of the child and the child's belongings, subject to any contrary order rests with primary parents until the visiting parent arrives to take responsibility of the child/ren. In situations where the primary parent cannot be in contact with the visiting parent and is required to leave before the visiting parent arrives then the staff member will temporarily take responsibility for the child until the visiting parent arrives. Prior to contact visits it is important that the parents make arrangements and agree on which parent will take responsibility for ensuring that things necessary for visits are available e.g. food, medication, clothing, car restraints. These arrangements should always be clearly outlined in case notes to ensure all staff members working with these clients are updated with any changes. This minimises parental conflict.
Premises / Location of Contact Visits
Family Contact Services is an outreach service and utilises the community and parental homes to do contact visits. The location of the contact visit is initially based on the intake and assessment and type of facilitation required and is regularly reviewed and changed as required based on the needs of the case.
Alcohol and Drugs while Visiting or Picking up a Child
All visits or changeovers will not be facilitated by the service if it appears that a parent is under the influence of alcohol or drugs at the commencement of contact. This is in order to ensure that:
Care for the child during contact is appropriate and safe.
The parent can appropriately relate to the child during visit time.
The parent can comprehend and follow the reasonable directions of the supervisor/s.
Transport of the child to and from contact is safe.
Activities during Visits
Visiting parents should arrange for activities during visits that are consistent with the nature and degree of supervision which is required in their particular case. All activities should be negotiated prior to visits in order to ensure they are age appropriate and able to be conducted at the visitation location.
Conversations with The Child
It is so important for children not to have the same adult worries that adults do. Children only get one childhood and that time should be spent learning, be encouraged by parents, feeling safe and protected, supported, feeling loved and accepted. Talking to your child about your feelings toward his/her other parent is not appropriate especially if they are negative feelings. Talking to your child about money worries is not appropriate. Talking to your child about any legal issues or court proceedings is not appropriate. The supervisor who is attending your supervised contact visit is not the person to talk to about any of these issues.
We strongly encourage you to have your mobile phone turned off during the contact you have with your child so as to fully enjoy maximum fun with you child.
Medication and Diet
All arrangements for medication and diet requirements should always be negotiated prior to visitation commencing. The primary parent should provide this information outlining these requirements to the Family Contact Worker in order for the worker to make appropriate arrangements to provide responsible care for the child, help to develop consistency in parenting approaches and to reduce the degree of parental conflict. Staff are required to document all this information in the families file.