Competency #6: Do a literature review on supervised visitations

[Once I started this assignment, I realized that doing an actual literature review was not feasible since undertaking such an endeavor, doing it adequately, would take an inordinate amount of time. I also realized that summarizing all the relevant research about supervised visitations would force me to spend time reading many articles that were not necessarily relevant to my current internship. So in what follows I have summarized the relevant literature on three aspects of supervised visitations that I believed were especially pertinent to my internship.]

The Reasons for Supervised Visitation

Most supervised visitations are court-mandated (Saini, Van Wert, and Gofman, 2012, p. 163), usually for one of the following reasons (Thoennes and Pearson, 1999, p. 469; Brandt, 2007, pp. 218-220).

Child welfare. Judges often mandate supervised visitations when they believe a parent is a threat to their children. This threat need not be physical. Brandt (2007) recounts the case of a father who continually badmouthed his ex-wife in front of their children. Although the children said they loved their father, they “were fearful of him and experienced emotional and physical stress in preparation for visitations with him” (pp. 218-219). The judge consequently ordered that the father could only see his children under supervision (p. 219). Other parents are found to be a threat because their “judgment regarding care for the child is impaired by mental-health or substance abuse issues” (Brandt, p. 220). Supervised visitations allow such individuals to continue being involved in their children’s lives in a way that guarantees their children’s safety (Pulido, Forrester, and Lacina, 2011, p. 380).

Domestic Violence. Judges often mandate supervised visitations when there is reason to believe that the non-residential parent has perpetrated domestic violence. “Typically, this occurs in situations when an order of protection has been issued, the abused spouse is in a shelter, or in situations in which there is potential for ongoing harm to a parent. Supervised visitation services in such cases can be an important component in avoiding further incidents of domestic violence” (Pulido, Forrester, and Lacina, 2011, p. 380).

            Abduction risk. Brandt (2007) recounts a case in which, after filing for divorce, a mother “fled with the couple’s four-year-old daughter” and “kept her whereabouts secret for several months” (p. 219). The court ordered supervised visitations between the daughter and her father; when the mother failed to bring the child to these visitations, the court “granted sole custody to the father and ordered that the mother’s access to the child be supervised” (p. 219).

            High-conflict divorce or separation. Some judges mandate supervised visitations when the parents are engaged in a high-conflict divorce or separation. “By limiting the face-to-face contact between disputing parents, [supervised visitation] centers provide a mechanism for maintaining noncustodial visitation in a safe environment” (Dunn, Flory, and Berg-Weger, 2004, p. 62). Many of these separating couples split custody but use third-party supervised transfer services (Dunn, Flory, and Berg-Weger, 2004, p. 62).

Reunification. Judges sometimes mandate supervised visitations when “the parent and child have previously not had a relationship or where there has been a long interruption in the parent-child relationship; in such situations, supervision is ordered to facilitate the reestablishment of the parent-child relationship” (Brandt, 2007, p. 202).

The Rationale for Supervised Visitation

Pulido, Forrester, and Lacina (2011) write that, although “there is some debate over whether interaction between parents and children should be granted at all when there is possible risk to that child, the courts have decided that where at all possible, the continuation of the parent-child relationship shall be presumed” (p. 380). Consequently, the courts have increasingly ordered supervised visitations for parents deemed to be a risk to their children (p. 380).

Birnbaum and Alaggia (2006) argue that it is important to maintain parent-child relationships, writing that “ongoing contact between children and their non-custodial parent is particularly important at a time when the children are experiencing turmoil and feeling the loss of both their parents. Additionally, children’s long term behavioral and emotional adjustment will be more positive in the long run when they have contact with both of their parents” (p. 119).

Brandt (2007) argues that more research is needed to determine under what circumstances it is appropriate to continue a relationship when an individual’s parenting is “dangerous or inappropriate” (p. 224). To date, not enough is known about “the nature and impact of attachments between children and bad parents” (p. 224). Although children are generally harmed by losing “attached relationships,” it is not know if this holds true when a child loses an attached relationship with an abusive parent (pp. 224-225).

            Dunn, Flory, and Berg-Weger (2004) cite numerous studies to back up their claim that, “[i]n most cases, maintaining frequent and consistent contact between children and their noncustodial parents helps facilitate better child adjustment” (p. 60). But they add an important caveat: “Unfortunately, in high-conflict custody disputes, these patterns do not hold true. Research has demonstrated that when parents maintain visitation but continue to engage in verbal and physical aggression, their children’s adjustment suffers” (p. 60).

The Effects of Supervised Visitation

Noncustodial Visits. Perkins and Ansay (1998) found that families participating in a supervised visitation center in Florida were “more likely to have visitations occur and have several visits than non-participating families” (p. 256).

Parental Conflict. Flory, Dunn, Berg-Weger, and Milstead (2001) found that conflict between parents “significantly decreased” when they started using supervised visitation (p. 469). Dunn, Flory, and Berg-Weger (2004) found that this decrease in parental conflict significantly benefits the children involved. Previous research had established that “[w]hen high-conflict families attempt to maintain noncustodial parent-child contact without intervention, interparental conflict is chronic and children’s adjustment consistently measures within a range that warrants clinically significant concern” (p. 69). Dunn et al. (2004) found that children under supervised visitation, by contrast, “maintained levels of normal adjustment…even when visitation frequency was significantly increased” (pp. 69-70).

Client Satisfaction. Jenkins, Park, and Peterson-Badali (1997) surveyed children, custodial parents, and non-custodial parents who participated in supervised visitations and found that all three groups were “generally satisfied with the services provided” (p. 62).

Changes in Behaviors and Attitudes. Jenkins, Park, and Peterson-Badali (1997) did not find any evidence that participating in supervised visitations improved the behaviors of either parents or children (pp. 57-58). Nor did they find any evidence that participation improved parents’ “attitudes toward of one another” (p. 57).

Leathers (2003) studied young adolescents who had been in “non-relative family foster care for at least a year” (p. 55) and found that supervised visitations did not have any impact on their “emotional and behavioral problems” (pp. 59-60). She pointed to two other studies which “failed to detect either a positive or a negative association between parental visiting and the adaptation of children placed in family foster care” (p. 60).

            Leathers (2003) also found that foster children who had frequent supervised visitations with their biological mothers were more likely than others to have loyalty conflicts between their biological and foster mothers (p. 60). These children were also more likely to experience “greater emotional and behavioral problems,” although it is far from clear that the visitations caused these problems (p. 60).

McWey and Mullis (2004) found that foster children who had “more consistent and frequent” supervised visitations with their biological mothers had “more secure attachments” and were “better adjusted” than children who had less consistent and less frequent supervised visitations (p. 297). They further found that these children were “less likely to take psychiatric medication and were less likely to be termed ‘developmentally delayed’ than were children with less secure attachments” (p. 298).

            Dunn, Flory, and Berg-Weger (2004) found that parents who participated in supervised visitations were “significantly less likely to endorse positive beliefs about using corporal punishment” than non-participants (p. 68).

            Summary. Birnbaum and Alaggia (2006) point out that, although such studies as those described above indicate that “supervised visitation programs show promise,” these programs “still lack much scientific support. While a reduction of conflict between parents, an increase in non-custodial parent visitation, and satisfaction around such visits appears to occur as a result of these programs, these results are not based on controlled studies. Moreover, these programs have yet to demonstrate significant improvement in parent/child relationships” (p. 123).

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References

Birnbaum, R., & Alaggia, R. (2006). Supervised visitation: A call for a second generation

of research. Family Court Review, 44(1), 119-134.

Brandt, E.B. (2007). Concerns at the margins of supervised access to children. Journal of

Law and Family Studies, 9(2), 201-230.

Dunn, J.H., Flory, B.E., & Berg-Weger, M. (2004). An exploratory study of supervised

access and custody exchange services: The children’s experience. Family Court Review, 42(1), 60-73.

Flory, B.E., Dunn, J., Berg-Weger, M., & Milstead, M. (2001). An exploratory study of

supervised access and custody exchange services: The parental experience. Family Court Review, 39(4), 469-482.

Jenkins, J.M., Park, N.W., & Peterson-Badali, M. (1997). An evaluation of supervised

access II: Perspectives of parents and children. Family and Conciliation Courts Review, 35(1), 51-65.

Leathers, S.J. Parental visiting, conflicting allegiances, and emotional and behavioral

problems among foster children. (2003). Family Relations, 52(1), 53-63.

McWey, L.M., & Mullis, A.K. (2004). Improving the lives of children in foster care: The

impact of supervised visitation. Family Relations, 53(3), 293-300.

Perkins, D.F., & Ansay, S.J. (1998). The effectiveness of a visitation program in fostering

visits with noncustodial parents. Family Relations 47(3), 253-258.

Pulido, M.L., Forrester, S.P., and Lacina, J.M. (2011). Raising the bar: Why supervised

visitation providers should be required to meet standards for service provision. Family Court Review, 49(2), 379-387.

Saini, M., Van Wert, M., & Gofman, J. (2012). Parent-child supervised visitation within

child welfare and custody disputes: An exploratory comparison of two distinct models of practice. Children and Youth Services Review, 34(1), 163-168.

Thoennes, N., & Pearson, J. (1999). Supervised visitation: A profile of providers. Family

and Conciliation Courts Review, 37(4), 460-477.