Hello, my name is Shazia Hafiji and I am an Associate at the Feldstein Family Law Group. In this video, we will be talking about supervised access.

Imagine the following scenario:

You find yourself in court and your spouse is claiming that you are not capable of spending any alone time with your 6-month-old baby at all. Your spouse distrusts your family and is not prepared to allow you any time with your child. As a result of this, the court orders supervised access only.

What do you do?

Well, “supervised access” refers to time spent with a child under the supervision of another person.

There are supervised access centres where you can have access as per the terms of the Order. However, if you are financially able to afford to pay a third party – then this is a wonderful alterative for you and for the children. This ought to be your immediate plan. You should let your lawyer know that you want to utilize the services of a supervised access worker.

When my clients advise me that they wish to proceed by way of supervised access and want to specifically use a supervised access worker, I go to court prepared with information about organizations in the parties’ neighbourhood that offer such services. I look into the prices of each access visit, whether the centre or organization offers subsidized pricing, and I also canvass the centre or a specific worker’s availability.

Using a supervised access worker will give the other party or parent comfort in knowing that someone else is there to watch and supervise the access. Most importantly, it allows you to have time with your child or children out in the public or in your home. Some workers will even provide a report of each visit or a summary report to be used in court.

Should you require more information about the supervised access worker and supervised access in general, please visit our website at www.separation.ca or contact our office at 905-581-7222 to schedule a free initial consultation.