We often hear from people who owe child support that they don’t want to pay because they don’t get to see their children. While we always point out their required payments and their visitation rights are independent of each other, we are certainly sympathetic to parents who want to see their children but cannot come to an agreement with the other parent on how to do it.
Now, thanks to a $50,000 grant, we can offer safe, secure and private visitation rooms for parents paying child support to be able to visit with their children. The idea is that parents who are able to spend some time with their children will be more likely to consistently pay child support.
Sometimes the custodial parent doesn’t want to leave the child with the other parent, or they themselves don’t want to see the other parent. Sadly, soemtimes the two parents really do not even know each other well.
Under the grant, court magistrates will refer these parents to us for visitation arrangements and we will arrange supervised visitation or drop off at the Family Nurturing Center, which already handles our Children’s Services visitations. FNC will provide both a secure pickup and drop-off point, separate from the non-custodial parent entrance, and supervised visitations when necessary.
We believe this new initiative will both increase child support collections and improve bonding between non-custodial parents and their children.
