Supervised Access in NY Matters: Reasons and Resources

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hello my name is ken novenstern from
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fredman bacon and novenstern llp in
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mount kisco in white plains new york
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and i happen to have five cases right
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now which involves supervised access
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so i’d like to talk a little bit about
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that
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two of the cases are in putnam county
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two of the cases are in westchester
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county one of the cases is in new york
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county
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and supervised access comes about for a
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variety of reasons but
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you can really distill it down to
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situations where
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someone
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either has very poor judgment or has
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exercised very poor judgment as it
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relates to
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the children um
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where people use drugs or alcohol
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and again relating to the safety of the
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the children
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um and
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also in some situations where there are
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allegations of domestic violence or
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domestic abuse
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so
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in those situations
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the courts still want to maintain a
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relationship between the children and
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the parent who is either
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the substance abuser or
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who has made poor decisions or
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who allegedly committed some form of
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domestic violence
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so one way to do that is to provide for
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supervised access or therapeutic
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supervised access
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and
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in that regard you’ve got a few
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considerations it can be very difficult
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to accomplish supervised access
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because if you’re talking about finding
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supervisors
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in most instances the court would like
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some recognized supervisor that provides
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that service
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that has a demonstrated background
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possibly a therapist
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someone with a psych psychiatric or
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psychological background
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and
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there’s also the cost associated with
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that
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and for whatever reason i think right
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now in our society
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there are many many cases where
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supervised access is necessary
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and it’s a limited resource
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so there’s an expense
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there’s the difficulty of scheduling
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periods of supervised access
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between a parent and their children
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as an example one of the resources
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locally is the ywca in white plains new
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york
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and you know they i think right now are
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stretched i think there’s a heavy demand
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and
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they have their dates once you get in
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there and once you get your time slot
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um that’s your time slot and they’re not
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going to be able to change it they’re
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not going to be able to move you back an
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hour because they already have someone
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else in that next time slot
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in regard to resources yes the ywca is a
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resource locally
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there’s also an organization called
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supervised visitation experts sve
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locally
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and what i am also seeing is
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therapists who are acting as supervisors
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and in the
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in each of those instances
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there’s the expectation that the
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supervisor will
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prepare a report
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so that a report can be provided to the
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court
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and the court can get a better sense of
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what’s going on
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in terms of how the children relate to
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that parent
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how that parent is act acting during the
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supervised period
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on those kinds of things so
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supervised access is hopefully a
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short-term process hopefully
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the parent who has that access will
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graduate to
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unsupervised or regular access
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quickly
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but it’s an important topic and
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something to be aware of if you have any
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questions please feel free to contact me
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take care
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