LEBANON, NH — A year ago, there were only three supervised visitation centers in New Hampshire. Now, the state is down to two as Waypoint’s Upper Valley center ends its supervised visitation services to New Hampshire families.
Supervised Visitation Centers provide safe places for children to visit with their non-custodial parent. In most cases, these are families affected by domestic violence, mental illness, sexual assault, or who otherwise require supervised contact between children and family members.
According to Borja Alvarez de Toledo, president and CEO of Waypoint, the agency has had to suspend these services since there will be no state funding to them.
On average, it costs approximately $150,000 a year to run the center. Previously, Waypoint had been raising charitable dollars in order to keep the program running while lobbying for state support.
In 2019, the legislature passed funding for the three centers in New Hampshire, but those funds never made it into the state budget.
“New Hampshire is the only state in the country in which supervised visitation centers are not state-funded,” says Alvarez de Toledo. “To rely solely on funding from private philanthropy is just not sustainable.”
According to Jeannette Birge, director of Waypoint’s Supervised Visitation Center, families are court-ordered for these services when it is deemed to be in the best interests of the children.
“Without centers like these,” she says, “local families will have to revert to meeting in public places like libraries or store parking lots, which poses risks to the children and families involved, and to the public.”
On average, approximately 21 families utilize Waypoint’s Upper Valley Supervised Visitation Center at any given time: 10 from New Hampshire and 11 from Vermont. The state of Vermont has maintained funding so that the Center can continue to serve Vermont families.
“Our New Hampshire families are really devasted by this,” continues Birge. “Supervised visitation in a safe, controlled setting has proved a good experience with positive outcomes for children and their families. I fear that with more families under more stress than ever, the void of this service in the Upper Valley will leave many children in peril.”
