By Anita Petrovic.
Being on the receiving end of an Order for your time with your children to be supervised can be unpleasant (to say the least), particularly where you consider the allegations against you that lead to the supervision Order to have been fabricated.
Orders for supervised time between the children and the non-resident parent are made to ameliorate risk to children in spending time with that parent; the alleged risk could relate to issues of family violence during the relationship or since separation, child abuse, drug use, alcohol abuse, or parental incapacity, amongst others.
Where there are such allegations, one of the most effective ways to disprove those allegations or at least demonstrate that the alleged behaviour has stopped is to have your contact with the children supervised by a professional supervision agency. These agencies are operated by independent third parties who have no interest in the dispute between you and your ex-partner and are only concerned with the children’s safety during the contact.
The supervisor will prepare a supervision report outlining what occurred during the contact and any areas of concern in the behaviour of the parent being supervised, and will also cease the contact if they consider the children are at a risk of harm.
The Court will err on the side of caution when it comes to issues of risk associated with children which is why, at an interim stage, Orders for supervision of time between a party and the children may be made. Once a suitable period of supervision passes (the length of which is dependent on the circumstances of the case), one of the best assets in seeking Orders for unsupervised time are glowing supervision reports prepared by the commercial supervision agency showing the children’s meaningful relationship with that parent, demonstrating the parent’s capacity to meet the children’s needs and most importantly evidencing the absence of any risk to the children in that parent’s care.
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