A COMPREHENSIVE BLUEPRINT FOR A CRUCIAL SERVICE: FLORIDA’S NEW SUPERVISED VISITATION STRATEGY

Abstract

While interest in supervised visitation programs exists internationally, Florida in particular has consistently been at the forefront of the development of visitation services, and has steadily sought to increase their quality, consistency, and effectiveness. With over sixty supervised visitation programs throughout the state, Florida has an exceptionally strong interest in tracking these developments. Recently, an unprecedented statewide effort has been underway that has drawn from and advanced myriad local, state and federal conversations about supervised visitation. The result is a new comprehensive set of uniform state standards, accompanied by compliance measures, tracking forms, the first proposed certification process for supervised visitation programs, and advances in the discussion of immunity for providers and program access to the referring court. This article traces these unparalleled developments. Part I provides an overview of the evolution and growth of supervised visitation nationally. Part II describes both the 2007 Florida legislative mandate for new standards to govern programs and the process by which they were written. Part III explains the guiding principles that provide a framework for these standards: safety, training, dignity, diversity, and community. Parts IV-VII address Florida's Programs' salient operational details under the standards, and offer direction to other jurisdictions seeking to use Florida's comprehensive model as a template for their own policy development.