1. What are your (and your staff's) qualifications?
Most professional supervisors have no related education or training. If the agency has at least one educated owner/coordinator, they can carry a team of less educated staff who would hopefully keep the same high professional standards. But if the owner/coordinator is uneducated in a related field, their staff's professional conduct and quality of service may be inconsistent and unreliable.
2. How long have you (or your staff) been doing this?
Seek an agency with at least 5 years experience. No one should run a supervision agency without first working as supervisor for another agency for at least 5 years.
3. Do you (or your staff) have criminal record checks done for the Vulnerable Sector? How often do you renew it?
Criminal Record Checks for the vulnerable sector are necessary whenever the professional works with underage children or seniors. This means records are checked for any offences related to young children or seniors. The CRC should be renewed yearly, just as schools do it for their staff and teachers.
4. Do they have a website and an intake form?
Although it can mean a more reputable agency, it also shows that they understand the importance of educating their clients as the reputable agencies will provide detailed information and list questions you should ask before hiring any supervisor. Consider the answers they provide to your questions before you make a decision.
5. How do you (or your staff) ensure proper supervision when family members talk to the child(ren) in a language unknown to the supervisor?
If anyone talks to the children in a language unknown to the supervisor, the purpose of supervision is defeated. Allowing languages unknown to supervisor creates opportunities for secrecy and could expose children to emotional abuse. If a supervisor isn't available in the children's and parent's native language, the agency should require everyone to speak in english or postpone the visits until one is available. At the very least, the supervisor could make an audio recording of the entire visit and have someone fluent and reliable transcribe the recording.
6. Are your reports signed? Who writes or signs the reports when you use hired staff?
Each supervisor must write and sign their own report. Some agencies send the reports unsigned, and the reports have no value in court. Often the owner of the agency may sign their staff's reports at which point the report becomes "hearsay", having no value in court. It is best for the agency to have a staff member who is responsible for ensuring that each report is checked for grammar, clarity and professionalism. If anything is unclear or needs to be corrected, the report should be sent back to the supervisor to edit it. This is necessary as there may be a time when the report becomes evidence in a case and the supervisor must testify to the accuracy and content of the report.
7. Who is your client? The residential parent who makes the rules, or the supervised parent who pays?
Correct answer: the child is the client. It is best if the agency has a case manager who can hear the stories parents want to communicate from the past or the complaints against the other parent or the supervisor. That way the case manager handles all the due process while the supervisor's relationship with both parents remains clean and unbiased from beginning to witnessing in court.
8. Do you (or your staff) testify in court? Have you ever testified in court?
No matter how detailed the report, If they won't testify in court, the report may not be allowed as evidence. The accuracy and detail of the report will come into question and so the supervisor must be prepared to testify to the accuracy and timeline within the report.
9. Has you (or your staff's) reports or work ever been scrutinized, and were you (or your staff) fired as a result?
Access Supervisors often work with parents who are ferociously fighting each other in court for parental rights and property division. When they cannot defeat each other, they can turn against the supervisor, the agency, or both. Even the great supervisors can come under attack or are fired for being honest when one parent tries to manipulate the other. If an agency doesn't admit to being scrutinized or fired by clients, either they aren't properly reporting, or they are lying. The reality is that all agencies will lose a client at one time or another.
10. Do you set boundaries or provide support to the child or the parent if necessary? Is the boundary issue described and the support recorded in the report?
Sadly, some agencies do not ask their supervisors to stop a parent when there is inappropriate conversation or they do not help the child overcome separation anxiety. If a boundary needs to set with the parent, the report must reflect it. Choose an agency that has supported visitation services aside from the regular supervised visitation. This ensures your children are protected from inappropriate talk during visits and receives professional help working through their anxiety or anger.
11. How do you (your staff) address issues of bathroom, swimming, park, sports, tubing/etc. so the parent is never alone with the child?
Sadly, some supervisors let them go to washroom or tubing/sliding/swimming by themselves, or the supervisor is also in the water swimming. How are they supervising, and how are they taking notes in those situations? The supervised parent and children should never be out of supervisor's sight and hearing distance. For that reason, the supervisor takes the child to the bathroom or watches the parent assisting the child in a family washroom where they can all be together.
12. When do you write your notes, and how long until you send the report?
To have value in court, the notes must be written during the visit, and any necessary editing done right after the visit. It can take a few days for the reports manager to proof read and request further clarification from the supervisor. You should receive each report within a week from the visit. The longer the time until the report is written and sent, the less reliable in court. Sadly, some supervisors do not write their notes right away, then they forget key details sometimes even getting backed up with weeks of undone reports. Some parents shared having three months of weekly reports never sent to them by a previous agency although they paid for it.
13. Do you bring toys/games/activities to the visits if the parent doesn't have any?
A good Supervisor will keep some toys/activities for backup in their car incase the parent was not able to provide them on short notice. However, the parent should be encouraged to bring their own in future visits, to build a responsible approach to their parenting time.
14. Are you incorporated? Do you belong to a regulated association? Do you have business insurance?
Hiring staff and having them transport children without being incorporated or having business insurance on their car, shows the supervisor is not professional enough, or not knowledgeable enough for their own protection. How are they going to protect your child if they are not even protecting themselves? And if they do not belong to any regulated association, they have no professional standards or code of ethics to follow.
15. Do you (your staff) transport children? Do you (your staff) have insurance for transporting children and approved car seats or booster seats?
Sadly, some of the supervisors out there do not know child safety rules nor have proper equipment. Who will ensure your child's safety if the supervisor is not properly insured, knowledgeable and equipped? Due to high liabilities involved with transporting a child, some agencies do not provide such service. The options are to use a taxi, public transportation, or the supervised parent can drive the children while the supervisor is in the car.
16. Do you (or your staff) ever cancel visits? For what reasons would you cancel a visit? How do you do it?
Rarely, a visit must be cut short by the supervisor, for instance when the child is sick, or very distressed. Also, if the supervised parent is not keeping the supervision rules, is under influence of alcohol/drugs, is very late, becomes in some way abusive (arguing with or threatening supervisor, interrogating children, alienating the children, not addressing children's bad behaviour, taking them out of supervisor's view and sight, etc.). If the parent is refusing supervisor's correction and then resisting the cancellation, or becomes in any way aggressive, Police may be called to keep the peace as the child is returned to the residential parent.
17. How can a parent cancel a visit and for what reasons? How can it be done?
Any cancellations will be reported as well as the reasons for cancellation. Seldom cancellations for a reasonable issue like illness are not perceived negatively. A note from doctor is often required when a visit is canceled for health reasons. However, cancellations should be made one week ahead so that the supervisor can be rescheduled with another family. Less than one week cancellations must be renegotiated for a makeup time. Less than 48 hour cancellations must be paid.
