Policies
SERVICES
We provide contact visits and changeovers at a location that suits both parents. We can also recommend an age-appropriate, safe & practical venue at the time of booking. To ensure that each visit is safe and meets each child’s needs, we require 1 supervisor per 3 children as a ratio. An additional supervisor will need to be booked and paid for if you have more than 3 children involved. Children under 12 months require their own supervisor.
CANCELATION
If you wish to cancel or reschedule a booked supervised visit, for any reason you must give us at least 48 hours notice, by 4 pm, two days before the day of the visit.
If less then 48 hours are given you will lose payment for 2 hours.
If our supervisor attends the visit and the child, for whatever reason medical or not, is not brought to the visit or the visit is cancelled while the supervisor is on the way to the visit, full fee for that day will be forfeited, because we have to pay our staff and we lost an opportunity to serve another family.
PAYMENT
Payment must be received at least two days prior for the contact to occur. You can email us the payment confirmation. Please ensure you put your invoice number when making a payment so we can locate your payment easier as we do have a lot of clients with similar names and surnames.
SUSPENDING THE VISIT
At Children in Focus, the children’s safety and well-being are our topmost priority. We will immediately terminate the supervised visit, if, in our view, it becomes too stressful or too traumatic for the child. Such situations include but are not limited to:
- Discussing court proceedings with the child.
- Denigrating another parent.
- Verbally or physically abusing the child or our supervisor.
- Behaving aggressively or abusively towards the supervisor or others and failing to comply with directions of the supervisor.
We will not commence the contact visit if any of the family members are deemed to be under the influence of alcohol or drugs.
CONFIDENTIALITY
All information provided to us by either party is confidential and will not be disclosed unless both parties provide us with written permission to release the information. There are limitations to confidentiality which are detailed in our Policies & Procedure* document.
QUALIFIED STAFF
All of our staff are highly qualified and have Working With Children Checks and Police Clearance to work with children. Our team has extensive knowledge and experience in dealing with volatile situations and with children of different ages and needs, families with history of domestic violence, mental health issues, drugs and alcohol abuse, autism and child sexual assault.
Our team will support you in this difficult time in your life.
STAY NEUTRAL AND IMPARTIAL AT ALL TIMES
We stay neutral and impartial at all times to deliver high quality service and provide opportunity for the parents and the child/ren to interact with each other without fear of bias or judgement.
VALUE TIME
We value your time as we know that every second of your visit counts. We do our utmost to arrive on time. We ask you to value our time as well and have the children ready to go for the start and finish of the visit.
ENSURE SAFETY
We are committed in creating a safe environment for children. The safety and well-being of the children are our topmost priority.
CONSTANTLY MONITOR
We stay in close proximity to the child and parent during visits. We constantly monitor conversations and interactions between children, parents and other parties. We take comprehensive notes during the course of the visit.
ACCOMPANY
We accompany parents and children everywhere, including to bathrooms and change rooms. We will immediately intervene in the event of inappropriate/unsafe conduct and terminate the contact visit and return the children to their carer or parent if necessary.
FEEDBACK
We provide feedback to the primary carer that is appropriate and relevant to the child's care and keep confidentiality of the other parent.
GUIDE & ASSIST
We guide and assist parents with the care of children when they are failing to respond to the children's needs and safety.
SUPPORT
We support parents and children to facilitate a positive and safe interaction.
COMPREHENSIVE REPORT
We create a comprehensive report of the supervised visit which includes time, date,
the parties involved,
the activities that took place, conversations, interactions, behaviours displayed by the children and discipline techniques implemented. Such reports can be used in Court proceedings.