Understand supervised contact

Why supervised contact is helpful

Supervised contact can help maintain a relationship between your child and another person while keeping everyone safe. The Court can make an order for supervised contact if the judge is making a Parenting Order and thinks your child won’t be safe with someone who’ll have contact with them.  Some examples where a person may be ordered to see your child under supervised contact are:

• if someone has said the person has been abusive
• to help your child get used to seeing a parent or whānau member again when they haven’t been in contact for a while
• if the Court has made a ‘Protection Order’ against the person.

Protection Orders

The difference between ‘contact’ and ‘supervised contact’

Court orders about the care of children will also talk about 'contact’. Contact is about how your child will spend time with parents, guardians, or other people who are not their main day-to-day caregiver. This can include phone calls or video calls. ‘Contact’ isn't guided by the same Court rules as supervised contact and doesn’t mean a supervisor is needed when you spend time with your child.

Everyone should feel safe during a supervised contact session

Everyone should feel safe during a supervised contact session. This includes the person or people supervising the contact. All supervised contact providers have clear rules to help keep everyone safe. These rules should be given to everyone involved in the session. Rules may include:

• the times each person arrives and leaves
• what time the session will start and how long it will last
• general rules, such as no smoking or using cell phones during the session.

If you’re worried about safety during the sessions, especially the child’s safety, you should talk to the supervisor. Supervised contact providers may be able to make a session safer by adjusting their rules.

If the Judge has agreed for a whānau member or other nominated person to be the supervisor of the sessions and you no longer feel this is safe, talk to your lawyer, or Court staff may be able to help.

Who can be a supervisor

There are two types of supervisor: professional supervisors and court-approved supervisors.

Professional supervisor

Professional supervisors usually work for a supervised contact provider. These people have training and experience working with children.

They offer a safe service to children because they:

• understand children
• are neutral and don’t take sides
• understand their responsibilities as a supervisor
• know what to do if things go wrong
• have an independent person to give them advice.

Court-approved supervisor

In some cases, the Family Court may agree for someone like a whānau member to be a supervisor. This could be someone the child knows, and who is trusted by everyone involved. If a judge agrees that someone like a whānau member can be a supervisor, it’s important that the person:

• understands that the child’s safety is important
• understands the child and their needs
• is neutral and doesn’t take sides
• understands that they’re not allowed to leave the child alone with the person being supervised
• follows the rules that have been agreed to by everyone involved, including the Court.

What will the supervisor do

The supervisor will be nearby to ensure everyone is safe. This doesn’t mean they need to be involved in the session — they could watch from a short distance ready to step in if needed. Each session will be held at a place where everyone feels safe and comfortable, such as a local playground. Sessions can be more positive if the child chooses what happens during them. The supervised person can then follow their lead and join in and have fun.

How to talk to your child about supervised contact

The child’s day-to-day carer should talk to them about what supervised contact is and what they can expect. Make sure you explain the situation in a way they’ll understand, using plain and simple words.

You can tell your child:

• this is a time for them to spend and enjoy time with the other person
• where the supervised contact sessions will be
• who the supervisor is (if you know), that they will be close by during the session and they can go to them at any time if they need anything
• who will be picking them up
• when they’ll be coming back home.

If the session is not a place they know, describe it as a safe place where they can spend time with the other person. To help them feel more comfortable, you could visit the place with the child before the first session.

If you're the person being supervised

Supervised contact is a good chance to spend time with the child.

It might help you to let the child choose what they want to do during the visit. You can then follow their lead and use the session to spend some quality time together.

It’s great to talk to them about school and what else they’ve been doing since you last saw them, but it’s important to avoid asking questions or making negative comments about their other parent that will make them feel caught in the middle, anxious, confused or upset. 

Use these visits for what’s most important – having quality time with your child.

When it’s time to go, you may be feeling emotional, but the child needs to know that you’re okay. This is a good time for a hug if the child wants one – and then a positive goodbye.

How long does supervised contact last?

If your supervised contact sessions are court ordered, they must continue until the court decides they can end. At the end of all scheduled sessions, the supervisor will report to the court to say how the sessions went and provide a recommendation.

The court can review supervised contact arrangements at any time

The court can review supervised contact arrangements at any time. Usually if a temporary court order has been made, it will say when the supervised contact arrangements will be reviewed.  At the review, everyone involved in the case should go to court. In many cases, the relationship between the supervised person and the child improves relatively quickly to the point where supervision is no longer needed. In some cases, supervised contact may continue for years.

If supervised contact has been ordered and paid for by the court, the supervised contact provider will report to the court at the end of eight sessions or three months, whichever is earliest.

You can apply to end or review supervised contact

You can apply to have the Family Court end or review supervised contact. To do this, you’ll need to apply to change or cancel the ‘Parenting Order’. The Court will have to be satisfied that the child will be safe before they will order supervised contact to end.

Apply to change a court order

Apply to cancel a court order

If you’ve arranged supervised contact privately you can end the sessions at any time.

How to arrange supervised contact

You don’t have to go through court to set up supervised contact. You can arrange it privately through a supervised contact provider. To find a supervised contact provider, you can:

• look through the members of the Aotearoa New Zealand Association of Supervised Contact Services(external link)
• ask at your nearest Family Court
• ask at your nearest Citizens Advice Bureau(external link).

Fees

If you choose to have extra supervised contact sessions, or you arrange for supervised contact privately, you’ll have to pay for this yourself.

When the Family Court orders supervised contact sessions by a professional supervisor, usually you won’t have to pay for the cost associated with those sessions.