Child Contact is a short-term intervention, following divorce or separation, to keep children in contact with their non-resident parent. Child contact is designed to ensure children retain meaningful relationships with their non-resident parent and establish safe and beneficial contact when this is difficult to do on their own.
There are two types of contact services supervised and supported. Supported contact is direct contact which gives some support from a child contact centre worker to adults so that they can meet the needs of their child(ren). Supervised contact is used when it has been determined that a child has suffered or is at risk of suffering harm during contact. Parents can ‘self- refer’ to a contact service or be referred via a third party such as a family solicitor, mediation service, court, Cafcass officer, local authority or another child contact centre.
Child contact is often used as part of a range of interventions including Planning Together for Children and mediation.
