A Clay County Transitions volunteer is a trained individual that is designated to provide court-referred supervised visitation between a non-custodial parent and the child, so that a healthy relationship can be built between the child and visiting parent.

Qualifications of a Transitions Volunteer

1. Interest in children, parents, and their rights and special needs.
2. Time to devote to a training session, and a commitment of at least one year.
3. Ability to work with children and parents using tact, concern and basic human relations skills.
4. Ability to communicate verbally and in-writing…making verbal and written visitation comments, to the Court, to the program director, and other persons as needed.

Requirements of a Transitions Volunteer

1. Attend initial training session.
2. Agree to supervise at least four parent/child visits a year.
3. Agree to show up and supervise the visit at the designated time and location for the eight-week visitation, allowing two hours of their time.
4. Observe confidentiality of all information.
5. Be available Thursday evenings.
6. Report any problems or situations to the Program Director.
7. Provide assistance between the child and parent during the visit, if necessary.

Duties of the Transitions Program Director

1. Recruit and train new volunteers.
2. Provide names, times, locations and case information to the volunteer supervising the visit.
3. Assist Transitions Volunteers as needed with visitation problems.
4. Notify volunteers of any visitation changes or situations.
5. Serve as a liaison for volunteers and supporting.
6. Provide on-going training to the volunteer and staff.
7. Provide monetary aid to the volunteers when supervising visits that require a cost.

Visitation between the parent and child is completely voluntary by the parents. The parents can be referred to the visitation program three ways: paternity cases, Family Access Motion (parent does not see the child) or Family Court. The child must have experienced limited involvement of one or more of the parents for a period of six months or more.

The visits will be supervised for eight weeks at the same time and location each week for 60 minutes by the same designated volunteer. The parents and Transitions staff will determine the time and location of the visits.

If the parents choose to use this service, both parents will be assessed a one time fee of $50.00 and both parents will pay for each visit based on a sliding fee scale for the 60 minute supervised visit. This fee helps partially cover the administrative, security and visitation costs. The fees must be paid in advanced or the visits will not take place.

**Parents are responsible for payments of the security and visitation fees in advance, unless there are exceptional circumstances that make this unfeasible. Any payment arrangements must be approved by the Program Director in advance.**