Interagency Gender-Based Violence Policy Listening Session

Syracuse, NY August 22, 2024

THE LACK OF AVAILABLE SUPERVISED VISITATION FOR LOW INCOME LITIGANTS IS A PRESSING ISSUE ADVERSELY IMPACTING VULNERABLE CHILDREN WHOSE PROTECTIVE PARENT IS THE VICTIM OF ABUSE

At the Family Violence Women’s Rights Clinic, FVWRC, student attorneys, with the assistance of clinical faculty, routinely represent survivors of family violence in custody and visitation cases. Since 2016 when I assumed the directorship of the Clinic, we have worked on over 50 such cases.

It is well settled law in New York State that a court may order supervised visitation where there is evidence that unsupervised visitation would be detrimental to the child(ren,) Melissa L. Breger, et al NEW YORK LAW OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE sec. 5:28. “A court may order that a parent’s visitation may be supervised where it is demonstrated by a preponderance of the evidence that unsupervised visitation would be detrimental to a child’s safety or welfare,” supra. “Exposure to intimate partner violence (IPV) can have long lasting effects on a child’s socio-emotional and neurological development,” Mueller and Tronick, Early Life Exposure to Violence: Developmental Consequences on Brain and Behavior, Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience, 2019; 13: 156.

Researchers have estimated that between 3.3. million and 10 million children are exposed to adult domestic violence each year. An abusive partner who has chosen to expose their child to family violence acts in a manner detrimental to the best interests of a child, and supervised visitation should be required in such cases. In Erie County there is only one supervised visitation and exchange program, Catholic Charities, which features sliding scale fees. The intake for this vital program is currently CLOSED due to lack of program capacity. Another low- cost option, a supervised visitation program run by the Pathways Agency closed for Erie County residents in the last year. Therefore, there are currently NO affordable options for supervised visitation for families who need this service.

What are the consequences of this lack of safe, affordable supervised access programs? According to a recent report, Child Safety First, promulgated by the Center For Judicial Excellence, since 2008, 989 children were killed by a divorcing/separating parent; 140 of these cases had family court involvement.

In New York State law there is an assumption that it is in a child’s best interests to have a relationship with both of their parents, see, e.g. Sobie, Merrill New York Family Court Practice sec. 9:1 updated Jan. 2024, “The policy is to encourage access between a child and both parents, and it is presumed that visitation with the noncustodial parent is in the child’s best interests,” supra. In my experience a protective parent in a relationship characterized by domestic violence, (usually, but not always the mother,) is pressured to grant access to an abusive parent who has exposed the child(ren) to intimate partner violence.

As mentioned, since there are currently NO affordable options for safe supervised access in Erie County, protective parents may be pressured to agree to a supervisor with whom they do not feel comfortable. For example, the FVWRC represented a survivor of intimate partner violence committed by the child’s father who had beat and strangled the mother and taken their infant child, refusing to return her without police intervention. In this case, the paternal grandmother aided the father in slapping the mother in a violent incident, and repeatedly blamed the mother for the father’s abuse. Since there were no affordable agency supervised access options without a 6 -month waiting list, the attorney for the child pressured the mother to allow the paternal grandmother to supervise the visits even though she had aided the father in abusing the survivor mother. The mother was very uncomfortable with this but had no choice but to agree given the pressure she was under.

For families of means, there are a limited number of licensed private social workers who charge a fee to supervise visits; the going rate in Erie County is between $75.00-$125.00 per hour. Additionally, there is an agency, Angel’s Monitoring, which now provides supervised visitation services in Erie County for a cost of around $50.00-75.00 per hour. The individuals who provide the supervision, however, are not licensed professional social workers or mental health counselors. This cost is prohibitive for low income and even some middle-income families who may be living paycheck to paycheck.

New York State must act now to dedicate funding towards affordable, safe supervised visitation for all children and families who need these services.