Supervised Visitation and Exchange Center
Serving Grafton County, New Hampshire
MISSION STATEMENT:
Emerge Family Advocates seeks to help families function in a healthy way, primarily by providing the safe and neutral settings and services that help children exercise their right to the best possible relationship with both parents.
Emerge's primary function is to eliminate parental confrontations and conflicts from parent-child contact and to disrupt the cycle of violence/abuse.
SERVICES:
Fully-Supervised Visits- a staff member or volunteer is watching and listening to the visit at all times, intervening if there are any concerns
Semi-Supervised Visits-the visitation center provides a safe space for the parent(s) and children to visit, checking on the visit approximately every 10-15 minutes.
Supervised Exchanges-a staff member or volunteer facilitates the exchange of children from one parent to the other, without any contact between the parents.
Communication Logs & Co-Parenting Skill Development- in cases where there is not domestic violence, staff and volunteers can help the parents learn skills to effectively and respectfully communicate with one another about the children, and also help develop transitional plans for future parent-child contact
SERVICE AVAILABILITY:
Emerge's services are available to any community member, with or without a court order. Emerge staff does conduct a risk assessment on every case, and reserves the right to deny services to any family if there is a concern regarding the level of safety to any person utilizing the service. Security staffing is available on-site.
Emerge is open BY APPOINTMENT ONLY from 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m., seven days a week, 365 days a year. Because of the number of families utilizing the service, Emerge limits each family to a total of two hours of fully-supervised visits per week.
All services take place at the Emerge facility and any satellite sites.
SERVICE FEES:
All fees are based upon a sliding scale. Fees range from $10 to $30 per hour of supervised visitation, $5 to $10 per supervised exchange, and assessed a flat fee of $25 per intake.
Typically the non-residential/visiting parent would be assigned the fees for services, unless otherwise indicated on a court order. Emerge does not charge plaintiffs on restraining orders in effect any fees for services provided.
ONCE VISITATION HAS BEEN ORDERED BY THE COURT:
It is each of the parent's responsibility to call Emerge to complete a phone screening and set up an intake for services. Upon the initial contact, Emerge staff will send out an informational packet for parents about the service.
Parents are expected to bring the following to their intake: A current photo ID, $25 intake fee, $ 50 security deposit (to be returned at the end of services, if no fees are accrued), the most recent court order pertaining to supervised visitation/exchange, any restraining orders/Relief From Abuse orders in effect, and the residential parents are also expected to bring a recent photo of the children that will be visiting.
Last Year (2007), Emerge served 119 families, providing 722 supervised visits and 514 supervised exchange services--providing a total of 1,848 hours of direct services to families in need. This would not have been possible without the generous help of volunteers, grants, and donations from the community. Thank You!!
CONTACT:
2160 North Hartland Road
P.O. Box 1224
White River Junction, VT 05001
(Tel) (802) 296-7663
(Fax) (802) 296-7521