Supervised Access marks 25 years

Nicholas Donaldson

The Kenora-Rainy River Child and Family Services celebrated the 25th anniversary of the Supervised Access Program in Ontario with a small event here yesterday.
Past and present staff gathered in the Fort Frances office to speak about the history of the program with a visit from former NDP MPP Howard Hampton.
Hampton was the Attorney General when the program began in 1992 as a way to keep custody cases out of the courts and also provide help for families at a community level.
The Supervised Access Program provides a safe, child-focused, neutral setting where separated families can set up visits or exchanges under the supervision of trained staff.
The program is funded by the Ontario Ministry of the Attorney General and facilitates the conditions of court orders or volunteer families.
Hampton told the group that the program was started after a legal decision saying that cases needed to be presented to courts in a certain number of days or be thrown out.
The NDP provincial government at the time was then faced with many murder and abuse that need to be put to trial as fast as possible.
“We had to find a way to get these things to trial quickly, meaning we had to get a whole bunch of things out of the court system that had traditionally been in the court system,” Hampton explained.
He added that one of the ideas involved a community level solution to custody cases, instead of sending them to court to fight it out.
A pilot project was then proposed for the program.
“We put out a description of what we thought supervised access should look like and we invited different agencies to apply and give ideas,” said Hampton.
Fifty responses came in from around the province, and Hampton’s staff told him that the best one came from here in Fort Frances.
Hampton explained that he didn’t want it to seem like he was doing this only for the benefit of his hometown, so he asked for all of the responses to be ranked before he would look at them, knowing that funding would go to the top 16 or so projects.
Fort Frances’ proposal also ended up on top of that list.
Hampton explained that what made it so appealing was the inclusion of the surrounding area, and the idea that this could happen anywhere a suitable building is present.
When the project began an outside evaluator was brought in and, according to Hampton, said it was one of the best programs in Ontario.
“It had nothing to do with me, it was the people in this agency that made it the best in Ontario,” Hampton noted.
The evaluator said that parents and children were better off, the court system benefitted, and the recommendation was to bring the program to a number of sites in Ontario.
Hampton also mentioned that supervised access was one of the few programs that was actually expanded under Mike Harris’ 1995 Conservatives, a government that was known for cutting programs across Ontario.
“The evidence was there, this works. This is really good social policy and community programing,” said Hampton.
“It is good for the child, it is good for the parent, and in the bigger picture, it is good for the community,” he added.
“This is a success that should be celebrated across the province and I hope you continue to do this great work.”
Yesterday’s celebration was also accompanied by cake, refreshments and discussion about the history of the program from people who have worked with it for years.