Children's Contact Centre (CCC)

A child Contact Centre can help when there are safety considerations, or to help trust and reliability to develop between parents and carers. Our service is for parents, carers or other family members who are no longer living with their children. We can arrange contact in a safe and secure environment, with a range of toys and games to enable contact to be a positive experience. Services we provide:

Supervised Contact: This is for when there are more complex issues or concerns as to the safety of the children and or adults, we supervise the contact to ensure everybody is safe. Families are supervised on a one to one basis, and someone will always be in sight and sound of the children and will monitor conversation and provide assistance or intervention if necessary.

Staggered arrival and departure times are set so neither parent has to meet each other when attending our contact centre. Typed summaries of each session are provided to parties, which they can choose to share the records with the Court or other professionals, such as Cafcass, solicitors, or social workers.

Indirect Supervised Contact: When direct contact is either unsafe, unworkable and or not in the child's best interest, then parents or secondary caregivers are supported in using  creative forms of communication to keep in touch with their child/ren. The contact can be in the form of letters, cards, gifts, or telephone through our centre. This form of contact is often used to re-introduce a child to a non-resident parent they have not seen for a long period of time or there are concerns about domestic violence, child abuse or when the child has been adopted.

Supervised Virtual Contact: This type of contact may be appropriate due to distance, disability, travel or legal constraints. A trained supervisor will set-up the logins and ensure the session is safe and enjoyable. These sessions are carried out via Skype, Zoom, Teams or other video messaging software, and a written report will be included. 

Community Supervised Contact: Takes place from our centre and is introduced once a regular, safe and sustainable pattern of contact has been established. Involving the child and non-resident parent being accompanied by our Contact Centre Supervisor on visits to places such as the local parks, shops, and restaurants for a memorable day out. We will ensure that the arrangements and places visited are both safe and meet the needs of the child involved in the contact. We are dedicated in providing the environment for loved ones to interact and maintain a healthy relationship, and a written report will be provided for this service.

Supported Contact: helps keep children in touch with parents if trust has broken down or communication is difficult. Parents do not have to meet and other families can use the facility at the same time, only an attendance record is kept.