We should be supporting children’s relationships to their parents

Right now, thousands of children across our State cannot see one of their parents simply because we are failing to provide the resources for them to do so. As a state that is committed to supporting families, we must invest in maintaining those relationships whenever possible. Now is the time to provide $20 million to support safe and structured parenting programs. 

Every year, over 200,000 families go to court for help with custody and visitation, either in Family Court or as part of a divorce case. Often, there are serious issues involved. While it is essential for the mental health and well-being of children that they stay connected with both parents whenever possible, sometimes special steps need to be taken to make sure the visits are safe. If there has been a history of domestic violence, mental health challenges, or substance abuse, it may be best for the children to visit with the support of a trained professional in what is called “supervised visitation.” These programs provide safe and structured opportunities for a child to be with their parent, while the courts work to make a final custody and visitation decision.  A recent court-sponsored report estimated that children in at least 18,000 families a year need those services.  

Right now, most of those children are left hanging. Twenty-eight of New York’s 62 counties have no supervised visitation programs at all, and busy areas like New York City have programs with 6 – 12 month waiting lists because they don’t have the resources to meet the need of our children. High net-worth families can often find private-pay professionals to supervise their visits. For everyone else, New York State provides no comprehensive funding for these programs, that is why we need an investment of $20million. Nonprofits are left to cobble together resources from state, local, private, and federal sources. If a grant does not come through, a program may close – a real threat particularly now when federal funds are up in the air. 

In New York, tens of thousands of children have lost access to one parent – and often to their aunts, uncles, and grandparents on that side — just because we have not dedicated the resources needed to keep these visits available. For children, they don’t understand why they can’t see their parent. They often assume it’s because their parent doesn’t think they’re important, doesn’t care about them, or is in danger and can’t get to them. It wouldn’t occur to children that it’s the system itself keeping them away from their parent. But the parents and the court have done everything they can to maintain this critical relationship: it is simply that we as a State haven’t made sure the services are there to make the visits happen. We are terminating a parental bond through negligence.

Safe and structured visits keep children connected to their parents, which supports their emotional and psychological well-being, setting them up for future success. As the Chair of the NY State Assembly’s Committee on Children and Families and the Executive Director of the State’s biggest provider of legal services to children in custody proceedings, we know how much of difference these programs can make. Children’s access to their parents shouldn’t depend on whether they can afford it or not. 

Liberty Aldrich is the Executive Director of The Children’s Law Center and a retired Bronx County Family Court Judge.

Assemblyman Andrew Hevesi Chairs the Children and Families Committee and represents the 28thAssembly District.