Child Contact Centres - Do They Need To Change?

[@johnnys8713]

How depressing. I'm about to start these supervised visits I have a terminal illness and my ex wife has made up allegations of abuse so that I have to follow the court process, knowing full well my life could be over by the time the courts get their act together. It's so disgusting that something like this can happen and all everyone tells me is... You have to follow the process. I feel sick to my stomach my poor children are being put through this .

[@ComeJesusChrist]

They need to be scrapped with the family court system.

[@edwardobodo2268]

11.20 It is a prison like environment. No father or mother should have to pay to spend time with children in this context. No parent should have to pay to be punished. The government needs to support struggling parents. I have been at the contact centre for several visits and it is very depressing i feel for anyone who is having to attend one of these spaces. My ex partner seems to think it is "just like a playgroup" she does not understand the cold, un natural feeling of this space. If your lucky you get time alone with your child. If not you have other families, music and random ugly plastic toys to contend with. Not a waldorf doll in sight. I had to pay 120 pounds an hour for many visits, when i was earning 230 pounds a week . Which meant i had to choose between eating or pay bills on those weeks. For 120 pounds an hour id expect waldorf dolls, high quality paints and paper and fresh organic watercress salads and smoothies. Instead you get apple juice that tastes like poison with cheap sugars and sweeteners, cheap coffee and low quality tea. These places are scams which prey on vulnerable people. It is a prison like environment, as i felt tortured by it and i am traumatized by this experience. It is a disgrace. These places need to end, The decision made by the court has been very unfair to me, cafcass produced in accurate reports about me on the section 7. No matter what you say in court the section 7 over rules any evidence you may have that you deserve to have time with your child. This has not been in the best interest of my child. 1 hour a week with my daughter a week is not enough it is terrible for my child

[@McKenziePicave]

We're sorry to hear you too have shared the experiences that so many parents have within contact centres. We can only keep the best interests of our children in mind, and hope that going forward we see positive change within the centres. Know that you are not alone in your experience, and that we will continue to use our platform to show that so many parents are overpaying for a service that is not at an appropriate standard.

[@farookismail775]

Very good insight into contact centres.

[@liamharvey2053]

Unreal 😢

[@ComeJesusChrist]

These awful places are part of the systematic abuse against family values, the institution of man and the father’s place in the family. They are themselves a place of child abuse, where children are alienated from their father, seeing his targeted position. Please, someone suggest a study or any evidence about the long-term use of these on the child!

[@purplelilly2267]

As a mum i did not allow the court to put my children through that i decided its best not to let them experience that and hold on to the happy memories they have. The court cannot keep my children away for ever. They will be adults and they will come back

[@jodiesmith-j1c]

Hello, Thank you for your video. I am currently doing research with children and young people who experience parent child contact within a contact center. My research aims to listen to the voice of children/young people. Parental separation, conflict and the impact on the innocent is of great interest to me and this video was amazing. The law states decisions are made for the best interest of the child but as you highlight in your video, as much as the centers aim to be accommodating, safe and inclusive spaces. The question is how much of these decisions are decided by adults or how much decision making is influenced by the child themselves. I will highlight age and distress as a barrier to this however there are age appropriate and child/younge person friendly ways to do this. My research findings will include the 'institutions' and how decisions are/are not made by adults, and also look at how the child/young persons voice is/is not within the decision making process, it will question if decisions are always made in the childs best interest and if so through whos lenses. In respect of staffs positionality/bias within the setting I believe there is training provided however, I aim to explore this with in one of my projects, (be it this one, my masters or PHD) the training content and application. This is crucial to improving the outcomes for children and families where decisions are made based on little evidence or evidence that has been gathered from professionals who only have contact with one parent. I have to question where are Children's Rights acknowledge within? This topic is sensitive in many ways but given the statistics or the discussed topic they definitely needs to be a shift. Sorry for the essay but I find this video great and would be interested in communicating with you in relation to your knowledge and expertise in this area. Thank you for taking your time to read this. Kind regards, Jodie

[@McKenziePicave]

Hi Jodie! We'd be happy to discuss this more with you if you wanted to email us with any questions you might have. The email is [e-mail]. (This also applies to anyone else reading this comment - we are always happy to hear from people and offer guidance if we are able to!)

[@JosieFlutterby]

Child Contact centres are Punishment for the corrupt inefficacy of courts.

[@lynn6162]

Interesting video. I own and run a contact centre in Perth Australia called Building Bridges , (I'm from the UK) I am always working to make our service better and I agree that listening to the voices of parents who use services is important. .I think you have critiqued some issues that are within the scope of the contact centres or workers and some that are due to magistrates decisions. The 2 hours per fortnight thing is ordered by the court and often woefully inadequate, although many orders here in WA allow for far more hours than this and we can do this as a private as there are no waitlist (if someone needs a visit - we find a supervisor and come to your suburb. The location and the way in which the contact is managed is down to us. We don't have any contact centres as such - we supervise at the visiting parents homes, parks, leisure centres etc as our experience is that both the parents and children have a far better experience than they would in a sterile building. All of our supervisors are professionally qualified and I agree that this is very very important. However, this means that they also have to be paid at a proper rate for their work. The government are not going to allocate any further public money to what is essentially a private matter and so we always have an issue of how to make services accessible for parents on lower incomes. Very interesting point about 'appointments' being associated with something unpleasant. I hadn't thought about this, although I hope that with the children we work with, going to the parents home or swimming etc is much more something to look forward to.

[@McKenziePicave]

Thanks for sharing Lynn. Completely agree that contact in homes sounds better than the centres we have here. It’s a very complex situation once you start talking about government funding, but we need to do something to help these families. Keep up the good work over there in Australia!