Family Solicitors

Family contact centres are neutral, friendly and informal places where parents, siblings and children of separated families can spend time together in a safe and supportive environment. Such centres are often called child contact centres to stress the fact that their main role is to provide a child-centred environment, which includes games, toys and a range of facilities that are designed to address the diverse range of needs of children who have been affected by family breakdown.

The National Association of Child Contact Centres (NACCC) supports over 350 such centres, located in towns and cities across England, Wales and Northern Ireland and is the largest supporting body of its kind in Europe.

The centres are operated by more than 4,000 staff and volunteers and are used each year by more than 17,000 children. Membership of the NACCC is composed of a range of independent organisations, which run them, in addition to their affiliated members, such as the judiciary, family lawyers and CAFCASS.

There are two separate types of child contact services, namely supported and supervised. This arrangement has been set up so that families can be more efficiently assigned the appropriate level of support and appropriate environment, depending on their individual circumstances. There are also NACCC special interest groups, including the Northern Ireland Network and the Welsh Network of child contact centres and the Professional Network, which is run by supervised services. The European Confederation of Child Contact Centres (CEPREP) has the NACC as one of its founding members.

Contact centres provide a wide range of on-site facilities for use by separated families and other related support is offered by supervised services. There are accreditation and advanced accreditation schemes in place to ensure that contact centres are able to demonstrate that they operate supported contact National Standards or supervised contact Enhanced National Standards services.

The key services provided by contact centres are support contact, supervised contact, indirect contact, escorted contact, life story/identity contact, handover, supervised contact assessment and supported and supervised contact.

As an example, supported contact takes place at various community venues that have facilities designed to help children develop and cultivate positive relationships with non-resident parents, as well as with other family members. Such venues are suitable where there is no risk to the child and there is no close monitoring or detailed reporting involved.

Supervised contact takes place when the child has been identified as being at risk of suffering some form of harm during the contact. A court or local authority normally makes referrals for supervised contact and the venue will ensure the emotional wellbeing and physical safety of the child. Supervision by skilled staff used to handling vulnerable children and distressed adults is on hand at all times. There will be a high commitment of resources and close observation involved in supervised contact sessions and there are various levels of supervised contact, depending on individual circumstances. There is provision for movement between various levels, depending on the progress being made.

Contact family and child care solicitors, such as Duncan Lewis, for more information on contact centres.