On this episode of Children First Family Law, Krista dives into the intricate world of supervised parenting in situations with safety concerns for children. Our guest, Cynthia Roberts, who is well-versed in mental health and family law, shares her journey from a mental health specialist to a therapeutic parenting time supervisor, helping navigate keeping children safe when there are allegations of a variety of safety concerns for children with a parent. She offers a unique perspective on how these visits can be both protective and transformative.
Krista and Cynthia explore the challenges families face during contentious divorces, including the financial and logistical hurdles associated with supervised visitations. Cynthia discusses the delicate balance between providing therapeutic intervention and keeping meticulous documentation to ensure the safety and well-being of children. She clarifies the nuanced differences between therapeutic and standard supervised visitations, emphasizing the importance of unobtrusive supervision to allow for genuine family interactions. The discussion extends to the varied roles within family law, highlighting both Child and Family Investigators (CFIs) and best-interest attorneys such as Child Legal Representatives (CLRs) and reflecting attempts at more effective child-focused advocacy in high-conflict scenarios. Cynthia emphasizes the emotional demands on professionals in this field and the necessity for supportive professional relationships to enhance outcomes and prevent burnout.
Tune in to learn from Cynthia Roberts how to create supportive and safe environments for children in these complicated family law situations.
In this episode, you will hear:
- Exploring the role of supervised visitations
- Insights from Cynthia Roberts on the delicate balance between providing therapeutic intervention and keeping meticulous documentation to ensure the safety and well-being of children
- The challenges faced by families, including financial and logistical hurdles, in securing qualified therapeutic supervised visitation specialists
- Examination of the roles of Child and Family Investigators (CFIs) to best-interest attorneys and the impact on child-centered advocacy in family law
- The emotional demands on family law professionals and the importance of maintaining professionalism and respect
- Strategies for managing parent exchanges to ensure children’s safety and comfort during visitations
- The role of supervised visitations in assessing parenting behaviors and supporting positive parent-child interactions
Resources from this Episode
Roberts Family Resolution Services: www.robertsfamilyresolution.com
www.childrenfirstfamilylaw.com
All states have different laws; be sure you are checking out your state laws specifically surrounding divorce. Krista is a licensed attorney in Colorado and Wyoming but is not providing through this podcast legal advice. Please be sure to seek independent legal counsel in your area for your specific situation.
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Cynthia Roberts – Understanding Supervised Parenting Time Unedited Transcript:
0:00:00 – Cynthia Roberts
Instead of looking at it from a perspective that supervised visitations need to be restrictive in its entirety, look at it that a supervisor is there to make sure that the parenting time is safe and meaningful and to not restrict the time that they have, so the supervisor is able to get an accurate take on parenting time.
0:00:21 – Intro/Outro
Welcome to the Children First Family Law Podcast. Our host, krista Nash, is an attorney, mediator, parenting coordinator and child advocate with a heart to facilitate conversations about how to help children flourish amidst the broken area of family law. As a child advocate in demand for her expertise throughout Colorado and as a speaker on these issues at a national level, krista is passionate about facilitating and creatively finding solutions to approach family law matters in a way that truly focuses on the best interests of kids. Please remember this podcast is provided to you for information purposes only. No one on this podcast is representing you or giving you legal advice. As always, please enjoy this episode and be sure to like, subscribe and share the podcast with others you think would benefit from this content.
0:01:11 – Krista Nash
Welcome to the Children First Family Law podcast and I’m so glad today to have as our guest Cynthia Roberts, who has a wealth of experience working in high conflict, divorce landscape, families, children. She has an entity called Robert’s Family Resolution and that’s here in Colorado, but she’s got a lot to share with us about her experiences working in this arena and sort of how we can from her, from the ledge that she’s on with doing supervised parenting work as parent, coaching, child and family investigation, therapeutic work just sort of what she’s seeing from her vantage point in all of this. So, welcome. I’m going to just turn it over to you to sort of give us a little bit of your background and how you got into this.
0:01:53 – Cynthia Roberts
Okay, yeah, great, my name is Cynthia Roberts and I am the owner of Roberts Family Resolution Services.
I am a registered psychotherapist, child family investigator, parent coordinating, decision maker, therapeutic parent coach, therapeutic supervised visitation specialist and I have a team of staff that do supervised visitations and parent coaching in Colorado.
My background and training is at the cross-section of mental health and family law and in all of my roles I have to ensure that children are emotionally and physically safe and that the well-being of children is at the forefront of everything that I do. So I got into this field because I was interested in psychology and I originally started working with mental health patients, specifically in outpatient and inpatient programs with adults and then children as well, and then children as well. From there I got into supervised visitations, caseworking and kind of the cross-section with child welfare and social services, and I further went through my education in field child abuse, sexual abuse, domestic violence, coercive control, sexual abuse, domestic violence, coercive control really understanding mental health disorders and how they impact high conflict parenting. And then I kind of went down the path as well of family law, getting into roles of a PCDM and a CFI, which both of them essentially look at parenting time and decision-making areas in regards to family law.
0:03:50 – Krista Nash
Okay and so I mean I know so a couple of things you said. We’ve got child and family investigator work, which is just for those just new to this area is the expert role of looking into what’s going on in a family and writing a report home visits with kids, interviewing parents, talking to collaterals, looking at documents. It’s a fixed, it’s supposed to be fairly fixed and limited in scope and you know you’ll end up writing a report and then testifying if asked. And then the PCDM is the parenting coordination decision-making role. So you’re not an attorney in either of those roles, at least in the way you do it right, you do it from a mental health perspective.
0:04:29 – Cynthia Roberts
Yes, I do it from a mental health perspective, and the advantage of that is that in all of my roles, I’m already neutral. I have to remain neutral ethically and legally, so I feel like it gives me an advantage to be able to do my work from a neutral standpoint, whereas sometimes, as attorneys, they could be a little bit more positional. But still, I respect everyone in the field, whether they’re a mental health professional or family law attorney. Our main goal is to make sure that children are safe and that we’re making recommendations and decisions for their best interests.
0:05:06 – Krista Nash
It sounds like you have this whole other side of your work, really of your business, that you’re doing in-community and in-home supervised visits right, and that’s therapeutic as well, is that true?
0:05:17 – Cynthia Roberts
Yes. So centers recently closed down due to various laws. In regards to supervised visitations, and prior to centers, I had employment at a couple of centers and I quickly realized that the process, the staff and their overall effect of centers was really negatively impacting families to a certain degree because everything was in a controlled environment and then what was happening was outside of the center, when visitations would end, because everything was going great with these parents. These kids would get put back into triggering situations, into their home and with their parent. And I started doing community visits because I wanted to make sure that we were getting an accurate representation of parenting time in regards to parenting triggers, their environment, how we can best support their family without controlling everything. So that way our documentation was accurate and we were able to assess the children’s needs on a long-term basis rather than just doing something short-term like a center does.
0:06:35 – Krista Nash
So maybe give some examples of the types of cases that you, the families and the situations that they’re in. I’m sure there’s a wide, wide variety, but what is that sort of typical, or a couple typical, examples of when somebody like you would be called in to help a family in the family context?
0:06:54 – Cynthia Roberts
Yeah, so I also didn’t touch base on this.
I am certified in reunification therapy.
So many of my cases involve a parent-child breakdown of their relationship, essentially due to, maybe, domestic violence, child abuse, sexual abuse or due to look at visitations from a neutral standpoint, that our role is not to keep parents in visitations.
Our role is not to have them come in and get out of visitations super quickly. So, for example, social services what their role is is their role is to make sure that children go back with their family as soon as possible, that supervised visitations and things like that. Our goal is focused on ensuring that parenting time is positive and safe and that we’re accurately documenting what occurs during the visitation, that we have a good working relationship with both parents and that we’re making visitation something that’s positive. So a lot of the clients that we get are court-ordered visitations due to the court finding concerns with their parenting behaviors, substance abuse, domestic violence or co-parenting dynamics. A lot of the times I receive a lot of the more high conflict cases where families have gone through maybe two to six CFIs and two to six attorneys and the kids maybe were in visits five years ago and are doing it all over again. You do see families return to the system over and over again and you do see them kind of run through professionals very quickly.
0:08:52 – Krista Nash
Now let me interrupt you for one second just to be clear. So when you talked about social services, just for the audience who might not be aware, we’re talking about dependency and neglect, the state coming in and working with a family, and those visits are characterized very differently from the way you’re saying, and we’re talking here in this setting about domestic court, family law, one parent versus the other parent, and yet still we have some kind of instead of like the DNN cases, where the goal is to get through it super, super quickly. You’re saying. In these other cases, you’re taking a little bit more measured approach and attempting to really create good co-parenting and parenting so that they get out of their own conflict with each other and with the kids, right?
0:09:36 – Cynthia Roberts
Yes, yes, now we do also get referrals from DHS. I am in contract with Douglas County DHS for our parent coaching services and I’ve been asked multiple times by them to have contracts with other counties as well. But right now our main focus is, like you said, the high conflict parenting. But each of them really have complex dynamics and the children are really affected in these cases because the children’s needs are always going to be present and despite whether or not the parents have conflict or not and unfortunately their needs and their voices are not heard when conflict is present between the parents- when conflict is present between the parents.
0:10:25 – Krista Nash
So when you think about the ACEs and the adverse childhood experiences, maybe talk a little bit about that, because I think sometimes there’s this idea, at least that I’ve seen that in the you know, you said DHS, the Department of Human Services, just we use so many acronyms. So just in the human side that’s okay. With the dependency and neglect cases, I think there’s a general societal understanding that those kids have had usually adverse childhood experiences and we as a society want to come alongside those kids and try to help them, because some of them are really bad, bad enough for the state to get involved. But I have found it to be really pretty concerning how much we see children having adverse childhood experiences within divorce, within allocation of parental responsibilities. Can you talk about that a little bit and how you’ve seen that in these two different worlds and kind of what you see in terms of how kids are affected by what parents do in these cases and what they’re seeing inside the family law side of the cases?
0:11:23 – Cynthia Roberts
Yeah Well, first of all, studies show the impacts of conflict that it has on children. It impacts their academics, their self-esteem, their relationships, their behavior, and it impacts their relationship with either or both parents. What I see in a lot of my cases as a mandated reporter is that when I do report to Department of Human Services child abuse that children open up to me or my supervisors about. The first question that I get asked in the intake with them is is this a divorce or high conflict case? If I say yes, divorce or high conflict case, if I say yes, chances are slim that they will follow up with the kids. Now, if they do follow up with the kids, they tend to not get involved in high conflict divorces. So if they know that they’re going through a custody battle despite there being child abuse, they won’t involve themselves.
0:12:26 – Krista Nash
Part of that right is like. I mean, I’ve had this argument with you know, sometimes I’ve had cases certify over, depending on the county. I’ll say, man, we really need Department of Human Services involved in this case. They’ll say, well, you know, we did our risk assessment and because there’s one safe parent we’re not going to do anything. So that leaves the domestic relations court. I mean, I don’t necessarily disagree. There’s a lot of kids with two unsafe parents and DHS is overwhelmed. It doesn’t have enough people or resources to help with every single case. But it leaves us over in the domestic relations world sometimes with some really serious problems because we don’t have all those resources. I mean, parents have to pay for supervised visits versus again, parents have to pay for drug testing, parents have to pay for child advocates. Usually I mean there are some state options for some of those resources. But I agree with you that it does leave kids in some pretty bad situations that definitely have negative impact on them in the divorce world.
0:13:25 – Cynthia Roberts
Yeah, yeah. And with supervised visitations the average cost of a supervisor ranges anywhere between 60 to 125 per hour and the average cost for a therapeutic supervisor ranges really anywhere between kind of 95 up to 350 per hour. And when you’re considering parenting time with therapeutic supervisors, you know that gets really expensive for parents. So one of the biggest issues that we see, or that I see, in this field is there is not enough therapeutic supervised visitation specialists. So the court is ordering therapeutic supervised visitation specialists, and I think there’s only about like two or three of us in Colorado. What they do not understand is that therapeutic supervised visitations you’re not doing therapy in the visitations. The court is just basically appointing you because they don’t want to just employ any supervisor who may not have the qualifications in mental health. However, all of my supervisors do have qualifications in mental health. All of them right now that I have on staff have master’s degrees and are pursuing their mental health licensure or have their mental health licensure or are in, you know, completing their supervised hours for mental health licensure.
0:14:56 – Krista Nash
And what does that look like? The difference between what you would do in a supervised parenting setting without a therapeutic component, versus therapeutic supervision. What’s the difference from what you all do?
0:15:09 – Cynthia Roberts
So the difference is and I’ve had a couple court cases to kind of see there’s no statute specifically on what this is. Now what I’ve learned from my cases and going through them in the court process is that in therapeutic supervised visits you cannot develop therapeutic treatment plans because your role is not acting as a family therapist or individual therapist. The court is solely appointing you for your qualifications. Appointing you for your qualifications. So the same process that I do in my therapeutic supervised visitations I train my staff to do in supervised visitations and the great thing about it is it’s half the cost and they’re still getting qualified supervisors to aid in complex family dynamics.
0:16:04 – Krista Nash
So even when you’re doing the few of you that do actual therapeutic visitation, even though that’s, or supervision, even though that’s more expensive, it’s mostly that you have more qualifications and it doesn’t change what is actually happening in the visit and there aren’t any other unless they engage in also parent coaching. There wouldn’t be like, tell me about that. Is there feedback you give parents on? Here’s what I think you’re doing well, here’s what I don’t think you’re doing well, or kind of what happens after an actual visit or during it.
0:16:33 – Cynthia Roberts
So there’s a balance in what we do with our policies. Again, there’s no statutes on kind of what is you know black and white in regards to this area? What is you know black and white in regards to this area? What I train my supervisors to do is I train them to intervene when absolutely necessary. But our main job is to make sure that we’re observing the visitations, to make sure that our documentation is accurate and true, without constantly modifying or changing parents’ behaviors, because what’s happening, like I said previously, is parents are having visits, they’re constantly being provided parenting feedback, they’re modifying their behaviors, they’re putting a good face on for the supervisor, and then the kids go back into a situation and I get a call that something happened to the child because maybe the supervisor constantly intervened the entire time, and then it can be a life and death matter. So what I’ve trained my supervisors to do is I’ve trained them to have a balanced approach.
We don’t allow children to be abused in visitation. So visitations are a place where it’s meant to be positive and safe. If it’s not positive and safe, we will address it, most likely outside of the visitation, in writing, so we have documentation of it. And if the parent is continuously not receptive to understanding that visitations need to be safe, then we will terminate our role with them and let them know. You know, if you can’t follow our visitation guideline rules and make sure that visitations are safe, then we can’t continue supervising your parenting time.
0:18:21 – Krista Nash
And then you really only have whatever lane that the case gives you right. So sometimes you might have supervised visits that are all day, sometimes they’re only a couple hours, sometimes they’re once a week, sometimes they’re multiple times a week, right, and then sometimes they just end, right. I mean, I know I’ve had cases with you where it’s like, okay, there’s four and that’s it and that’s the end of it, right, what are your frustrations with that? How do you engage with the family that quickly? Do you still feel like you just have some insight that you can give? And you’re able to, you know, either take very short appointments or longer ones, depending what’s needed.
0:18:57 – Cynthia Roberts
Yeah, so every family is different and every case is different. The court using supervised visitations. They can use it for different reasons. So they can use it in a way to assess what is going on in a case before they hear the facts from both parents, or they can use supervised visitations as a way to better understand the case and, to you know, understand what’s going on with the kids. In all of my cases I have not had any judge look at supervised visitations as a long-term option, which I feel is sometimes helpful and sometimes not helpful. I think that abruptly ending visitations is dangerous for children.
The best recommendations that I have for attorneys and judges when they are ordering visitations is a few things. First of all, it’s important to be very specific in the court order about supervised visitations. You are dealing with two high conflict people who may not be able to choose a supervisor, choose a schedule, and they both may want to add different rules and things like that to the visitation. So what ends up happening is these kids go a longer time without seeing their parents and it creates more conflict and more litigation problems. So what I recommend to include in the court order, instead of being specific and saying visits shall be Monday, tuesdays, wednesdays from 5 to 8 pm, every other Saturday from 10 to 12, or once a week for four hours and twice a week. Instead of putting it like that, to allow less conflict with the families, the order should stay a minimum and maximum amount of number for supervised visitations, and it should be considered with the child’s threshold and also with the dynamics of the case. Allowing more time will not endanger the children if the supervisor is there and doing their role to make sure that everything’s documented. So sometimes I have non-visiting parents tell me I only want to allow 30 minutes, you know, once a week, because I don’t want my child to be exposed to them long term and I’m like well, when visits end, you know they’re going to be with them for a whole week or a whole weekend. So having more or less time, you know, don’t limit parents’ parenting time.
I definitely think there needs to be like a set thing that they can’t be every single day or something like that.
But allowing like a maximum of eight to 10 hours a week is appropriate and in the court order what I would recommend to put would be visitations shall be a minimum of two hours, a maximum of eight to 12 hours and the parties shall work with the supervisor for the supervisor’s availability. If either party does not work with the supervisor’s availability, they will be held in contempt. Availability they will be held in contempt and what that does is that allows it to be more rigid that, hey, if they contact a supervisor, the supervisor may not be available for that specific court order. So that’s the most important thing Set a minimum and a maximum and instead of looking at it from a perspective that supervised visitations need to be restrictive in its entirety, look at it that a supervisor is there to make sure that the parenting time is safe and meaningful and to not restrict the time that they have, so the supervisor is able to get an accurate take on parenting time.
0:22:40 – Krista Nash
Number one Well, and I think that’s interesting. And I just want to be clear when you say not restrict it, we’re not talking about restricting parenting time in terms of emotion to restrict and cutting them off. You’re talking about don’t limit it, because we learn more through having more. I found that to be really interesting with you and working with your team because, as the child’s legal representative, on some cases I have found that you all persuaded me, I guess, that having more time has been better. It’s not just this check the box so that the kid can say hi to the parent and that’s it, but we really can get some insight when we give parents more time with their kids under a supervised visitation umbrella. The parent can learn more. We get the opportunity. It tells me more as a child’s legal representative in cases about how this parent really can do over not just 30 minutes but two hours, six hours, eight hours. You’re the one that, I think, taught me that. But is that sort of what you’re talking about?
0:23:38 – Cynthia Roberts
Yeah, you definitely see more dynamics. And then on the other side of it is that children get anxiety when they’re in transitions. So when I receive orders that visit shall be four hours, for two hours at a time. It’s a lot of anxiety for these kids to have to get in the car, get transferred to a supervisor, get transferred to their parent, see them for two hours and then go back and forth.
I recommend, instead of having multiple visits per week, to have a longer visitation day. That way the child has less transitions, because I feel like the children respond better to having less transitions. It allows them to actually spend quality time with their parent as well, because being separated from a parent is traumatizing, no matter what’s going on in their case. These are families and having meaningful contact is more important than having frequent short-term contact that you know these kids are having a hard time transitioning to and from. So I recommend condensing and combining visits into a one long visitation per week, rather than looking at it like you would a parenting schedule. That’s like a 3-2-2-5 or something. This is a brief time where they’re with a supervisor.
0:25:02 – Krista Nash
Although if you had a really little kid, maybe you’d say more frequent, shorter visits, right?
0:25:07 – Cynthia Roberts
Yes.
0:25:08 – Krista Nash
Like a baby or a toddler who’s got attachment stuff and needs that frequency. I’m sure you see that with those kind of age of kids I’m sure we’re mostly dealing with teenagers in elementary school Kids, I’d say, is probably true in my cases and yours, yes. So for those who don’t know how super, you know we’re going to have parents listening who aren’t familiar with supervised visits. The way you do it, you really go anywhere, right, you go to a home, the mall, the zoo, whatever, and your people kind of stay back a little, right. I mean, they’re not always walking around, from what I’ve seen, with a clipboard or something. It’s like they’re on the phone. They’re trying to be kind of unobtrusive. I know parents usually say they hate it and they just talk about how terrible it is. But how do you train your people to be as little in terms of intrusiveness?
0:25:54 – Cynthia Roberts
So I train my employees to be what I refer to as flowers on the wall and basically I don’t want them breathing down families’ necks, making this an uncomfortable situation to be in. It’s already embarrassing. It can be financially costly to parents and we want to make sure that they feel comfortable and have a good relationship with their supervisor. All of my cases it’s very rare, for I don’t think anytime recently at least a client has had an issue with any of my supervised visitation specialists. They all have great relationships with them. They all report how kind they are, how great they are with the kids, things like that. So I hire people who have a kind heart, who love working with families and who don’t take it personal when they’re dealing with high conflict, sensitive information. And so I train my employees to really kind of have a preoccupied demeanor at times. And it’s not that they’re texting on their phone and playing games or anything like that. They’re taking notes on their phone, so they’re not walking around with a pen and paper and making it an uncomfortable experience.
0:27:15 – Krista Nash
But they’re listening right, they’re in earshot.
0:27:19 – Cynthia Roberts
Yeah, so everything during a visit has to be an eye and ear sight at all times During a visitation. Our visitation guideline rules are that the parent cannot talk about court or legal issues, finances or the other parent, and so our role isn’t there just to let anything and everything happen and, you know, put these kids through everything. We make sure we check in with them before, during and after the visitation and we don’t Sorry with the kids.
0:27:47 – Krista Nash
Yes, Okay, and how does that work? I know often the parents are in such conflict. They can’t even do an exchange right. I know I’ve been to somewhere the parents have exchanged at a shop or a coffee shop or whatever, or the park and there’s a time where the parents they’re not together. One parent’s dropping off with your people shortly after the other one shows up and you’re able to talk to the kid then, right, is that pretty common?
0:28:12 – Cynthia Roberts
Yeah, so I develop no contact during exchanges. This way our supervisor can debrief with the children before and after the visitation without either parent present. This allows time for the children to disclose statements to the supervisor and it also helps build rapport because the supervisor isn’t as actively involved the entire visitation. It gives the child time to know that they have a safe place to talk with the supervisor. So how a supervised visitation looks like that’s in the community is we have the non-visiting parent meet the supervisor at a location that they choose. They can choose.
0:28:55 – Krista Nash
And when you say non-visiting parent, you mean like the one that’s got the kids and doesn’t need to be supervised.
0:29:00 – Cynthia Roberts
Yes, the one that’s not in parenting time. So the non-visiting parent is the parent that’s not court ordered for parenting time and they have primary custody of the children. So the non-visiting parent meets the supervisor at a public location that they choose they can choose a coffee shop, a kid-friendly place or wherever they want to kind of a quick in and out option and then from there the supervisor introduces themselves to the non-visiting parent and the children, establishes their role in an age-appropriate manner for the children and then the non-visiting parent leaves the establishment and then prior to that we have the visiting parent the parent court-ordered for supervised visitations, that’s attending the visitations. We have them wait at a location that’s five to ten minutes away from that establishment. So as soon as the non-visiting parent leaves we then communicate with the visiting parent for them to come over to start the visitation. During that five to 10 minutes our supervisor has time to build that rapport with that child.
0:30:13 – Krista Nash
And do you find that kids talk to your people? And I mean, give me some examples of things you’ve seen in visits or that kids have shared with you that ended up helping the case in a particular way, whether it made the child need more supervision or less or, you know, had an impact on the case in that way?
0:30:31 – Cynthia Roberts
So a lot of the times children will tell us whether or not their parent is, you know, acting fake or not being genuine. Other times they will inform us of specific child abuse incidents that have happened to them that they start to remember, that have happened to them, that they start to remember. And other times we could have visitations for reasons such as physical abuse, and then the child builds a rapport with the supervisor and later opens up about being sexually abused by their parent. And that’s a common theme that we see is sexual abuse takes time to come out. It’s not something that happens immediate and it’s really alongside with physical abuse and emotional abuse.
0:31:19 – Krista Nash
And then, of course, you have to report that it causes more conflict in the case, I’m sure. But at least you’re getting children’s voices and understanding what’s going on, so I’m sure it’s a really important part of your work. Okay, so then they write notes. Those notes are generally available right to parents and to the court, and then do you also then testify if needed?
0:31:42 – Cynthia Roberts
Yes, so we do testify and our role is not to testify for the visiting parent. It’s not to testify for the non-visiting parent. Our role is to testify on supervised visitations and the facts that occurred during supervised visitations and assessing the situation from a neutral, professional standpoint. Our notes every agency does it differently but what we do is I have it in my agreement that our notes can only be used for permanent orders, hearings or upon termination, rather than our notes being used for personal or litigation reasons.
0:32:25 – Krista Nash
And when you say termination, what do you mean? Termination of your role?
0:32:29 – Cynthia Roberts
Yeah. So termination of services? So when services end? Okay. So instead of using our notes as constant updates to the parties, we only supply them when basically absolutely necessary, when it comes court time and when the parties are updating the court on really what’s going on. So some supervisors do it differently After each visitation they may send the notes to both parents. I find that that modifies parents’ behaviors, because then it cues them in on what we’re looking for, which is okay for them to know what we’re looking for. We’re not looking for anything secretive, but at the same time we don’t want our notes being taken out of context and then increasing litigatious costs and then also children open up to us about sensitive matters as well.
0:33:18 – Krista Nash
Do children seem to know litigations occurring, like children of all ages? I guess if you’re talking to parents about, you know how much they’re litigating, how much some cases obviously need to be litigated. There’s some serious safety concerns and serious abuse issues, but generally there’s a lot of litigation, even in cases that maybe don’t need so much litigation. Do you get a sense that children are really well aware of what their parents are fighting about?
0:33:43 – Cynthia Roberts
Yes, they always open up to us about what their parents are fighting about, whether or not one parent is in the wrong or not. They tend to think that both parents are usually in the wrong of it and they understand that it’s impacting every part of their life and they don’t want anything to do with it anymore. So what the court can do to protect kids from being caught in the middle is the court can make sure that court orders for supervised visitations are extremely clear on who can be present outside visitors family, friends, the minimum and maximum amount of time, who’s paying for visitations, who can choose the supervisor when visits need to start, and then also putting different boundaries on the supervisor’s notes is helpful to reduce like financial costs and things like that, as well as protecting the children Well people weaponize those notes too.
Yeah, and then also children. If once they’re aware that we disclosed what they’ve been opening up to us about, it ruins their trust with us. So what I’ve been doing lately in a lot of cases is I’ve had a lot of attorneys actually request for our notes to be confidential from both the visiting parent and non-visiting parent, and we only share our notes to be confidential from both the visiting parent and non-visiting parent, and we only share our notes with therapists, with CLRs, cfis, pres and the court, and this greatly improves the safety and well-being of children.
0:35:23 – Krista Nash
Yeah, that makes sense. I can see how that would protect just their ongoing relationship with you, the ongoing sort of purity of the environment that you’re trying to foster, so that we can try to get kids safe with both parents. I mean that’s the goal, right? Yeah, so let’s talk a little about your CFI role, as we, you know, wrap up our time here. Tell me a little bit about I know the statutes have been changing a lot about CFIs, and I do want to ask you one question too about your reunification work that you talked about, because, given that the statutes have changed and the way that we call these things and the labels on them matters, I want to just make sure are you using that term anymore like reunification therapy, or are you calling it more family therapy? You know that is a little different than that, given the way that the statutes have changed.
0:36:12 – Cynthia Roberts
So how I look at reunification is I look at it that it’s any form of therapy or perspective when there’s a breakdown in a parent-child relationship due to time, conflict, domestic violence, substance abuse or any other forms of abuse, for example. And so the way that I integrate that in what I do is not forcing children to engage in visitations if they feel unsafe and ensuring that visitations are mutual and safe environments. So the aspects of the reification that I take into my work is not forcing children and ensuring that their relationships with their parents are mutual and healthy.
0:37:02 – Krista Nash
Okay, yeah, cause I think the force aspect of it has been the piece that’s been most obviously in reasonably criticized. So, as a CFI, tell me are you still flourishing in that work? Have you thought about not doing it anymore? There’s a lot of people who’ve left the field. Share a little bit about what that work is like.
0:37:30 – Cynthia Roberts
And you know, if you’re mentor. Told me, cynthia, you need to do this. You’ll be great at it. So, when I first got started with it, I did my first case and you only get paid like 22 hours. Not that I care about the money, but I ended up, I think, doing over like 300 hours.
And I thought oh man, maybe this was just because it’s my first case. What ends up happening is you end up working like a hundred hours over than what your time is and it ends up going on and on, and on and on and we’re dealing with parents’ problems as they constantly come in, and it’s a very important role and I still enjoy all of the cases that I take because my recommendations have protected a lot of children. They’ve also helped with a lot of complex family dynamics and I received positive feedback that I’m extremely thorough in my report. So I’m glad to be an assistance to families. But overall there seems to be a lot of kind of internal obstacles with CFIs, such as CFI complaints.
0:38:46 – Krista Nash
You mean complaints people make about them, which are warranted and necessary, but some of which are frivolous and just because they don’t like the report.
0:38:56 – Cynthia Roberts
Yeah, so that happens a lot to my colleagues is somebody just doesn’t like a report. They’re dealing with a high conflict individual. We’re also sometimes dealing with dangerous individuals as well, so I’ve had my fair share of threats. And it gets to a point where you know sometimes you don’t feel safe, you know working with these families and you don’t have support.
I would say the biggest obstacle as a CFI, the reason why so many CFIs are leaving the field is because we don’t have legal counsel to represent us throughout the process when we’re dealing with high conflict families. And that is, I think, that the court, attorneys, professionals and parents need to be prepared that there is and will be a CFI shortage and we have to think about ways to move around it. I think the best way to move around the shortage, instead of maybe going to PREs, which are great, is to go to CLRs, because CLRs, I think, are the new CFIs. Clrs, I think, are the new CFIs. A CLR is great because what you guys do is kind of similar to what a CFI does in my perspective, but it’s more efficient and it’s more in the child’s best interest, yeah, and just to be clear.
0:40:21 – Krista Nash
Well, I appreciate that shout out for CLRs because I do both as well. I’ve pulled back on doing CFIs. I mean I was a reporter in my first life and I love writing and I love interviewing. I’ve really enjoyed doing the CFI work, but my posture as an attorney doing it is a little different than your risk Cause I sit there and say, well, I don’t really have that mental health background. Because the big difference between a CFI, even though I’ve got all the training I mean I have the training to get the rubber stamp to be able to do that work but it’s very difficult for me at least to sit on the stand, because that’s the big difference between the CFIs and the CLRs is you are the expert. As the CFI, if you get called in, you’re arriving to raise your hand and say, yes, I certify that I have the experience to be named as the expert in these areas. Essentially, that’s what the new statutes are requiring CFIs to say that they are able to do and that’s why we’ve all been trained so much more. So I have the dilemma as an attorney where I don’t know, I don’t feel like I can go that far and say I’m an expert but as a CLR I have the same investigative powers. I still have home visits, I still interview everybody. I still can talk to collateral therapists, look at documents et cetera. But I can navigate much more quickly. I don’t have to write and I can’t write a big report but I or any report really but I then can advocate as an attorney and I think the best CLRs are doing really serious negotiation work. You know CLRs are doing really serious negotiation work. You know navigating the high conflict, parents and counsel. Sometimes you know in in terms of trying to bring people to the table to come up with good solutions.
It’s always been frustrating for me as a CFI that you do all this work and, like you’re saying, I did the same thing. You put a hundred hours in and you’re getting paid for like 10 or 12 or 15 and there’s caps. So that’s it. I mean I don’t know some CFIs go and ask for above the cap, but I don’t think I ever bothered, maybe like once or twice in a really extreme case. But I just would put as much time in as I needed to and you know that’s what I think most of the CFI colleagues would do. But you know then you can’t. You’re like here, but you know, then you can’t. You’re like. Here’s my report. I can’t help you anymore. Don’t contact me unless I testify, don’t you know? Really most people are. Don’t ask me questions and you certainly can’t sit at because CFIs can get all that hearsay in in their reports, meaning out of court statements by kids and others for the truth of the matter.
Asserted really is the legal term and there’s a lot of challenges for a whole nother podcast about the evidentiary problems and challenges that we have as CLRs. But I’m seeing a lot of CFIs from, so my risk is like, okay, I’m not a mental health person, even though I’m trained. But I hear you, I’m watching all these mental health CFIs kind of freaking out about the legal part of it, because as a lawyer I’m not so afraid of the courts, I’m not so afraid of somebody filing something, and that doesn’t get me all up in arms or anything. It doesn’t get me afraid, right, I’m not intimidated by that. But the mental health professionals are like wait a minute, I don’t want to be deposed, I don’t want something filed against me and you all have a much more. I don’t know if I’d call it serious, but the grievance process is different under DORA than it is under Attorney Regulation Council, and those are all factors.
0:43:55 – Cynthia Roberts
Aren’t you seeing those kinds of factors, with your colleagues who are mental health professionals saying it’s not worth it to be a CFI anymore?
So most CFIs attorneys and mental health professionals both feel that being a CFI is not worth the risk for the other titles and roles that they have, and everyone is getting to a point where we are not heard, the process is not fair and we have a bad rep that CFIs are these money hungry people who don’t care about child abuse and domestic violence and things like that.
But the individuals I know and maybe that’s just because I care about those issues they do care about those issues and they are good people, but not only good people. They’re also trained in specific areas to make sure that they’re doing things ethically. The field’s going to be empty really soon, and so the legal and mental health side needs to start thinking about other options. For me, the other options are CLRs. I feel that CLRs also can be even more neutral than a CFI, because a CFI and a PRE is the one doing all the work with their expertise, and what I appreciate about CLRs is you guys are going to the experts to take that into account, and that’s what nobody is doing.
0:45:15 – Krista Nash
Yeah, I love that part of it because, rather than put my hand up and be the expert which I feel is a tenuous thing, even with all the training and I’m all for all the training, and I mean I didn’t even have to do all the training because I’ve already through office of the child’s representative. So they check the box legislatively. Just because I’m contracted with OCR, I’m supposed to already have the training which I do. But I did the other training just to be sure. I mean more training the better I think. But still I don’t feel that I can put myself out as that kind of expert. And so as a CLR I can go and say I need an actual DV expert, not a CFI or a PRE. Sometimes I do need a PRE because I need psychological testing, but maybe we don’t need a full PRE, we might be more nuanced.
I’ve been able to come up with parents and attorneys and judicial officers with some really creative solutions, like, for example, I have a case with a bunch of different mental health professionals. As CLR I’m going. I don’t know who’s right and wrong. There’s so many cooks in the kitchen here. I need somebody to really be at the middle to help me. Who’s a psychologist level person, not a PRE, which, by the way, costs what? $15,000, $20,000, more than that.
And you know I can really make some creative you know just creative solutions that I wouldn’t be able to do and bring in true experts on domestic violence or the various pieces that we need. Or that’s where I’ve worked with you on real supervised parenting needs and then we can communicate and that that it helps inform me so I can help the parents. Short of you handing your notes to everyone. I can navigate that with people and say, hey, here’s some feedback, here’s what we maybe need to be working on. Maybe I can talk to mom or dad’s therapist with them and say this is something that we could be doing, that the supervisor is noticing. So it’s more of a pivot role that’s more active and I agree, I mean neutral, but representing the child’s best interests.
0:47:11 – Cynthia Roberts
What is the difference between you and a PCDM?
0:47:14 – Krista Nash
Yeah. So I’m glad you asked because I know you do PCDM work as well. So a PCDM a parenting coordinator or a parenting coordinator slash decision maker doesn’t have to be an attorney, is appointed for two years usually to be able to make certain decisions or just help the parents deal with each other better, to parent coordinate better If they can’t get along to make those decisions for them on a very specific discreet area that the court is assigned to, that PCDM. So it’s really a role generally where there isn’t active court going on. That’s not always true, but not active court going on and it’s a person that’s appointed to kind of take it from there, take it from the court into the next couple of years to try to help them engage in problems.
And you know for me when I do that work I bring parents onto Zoom and I’ll try to just figure out solutions. So in some of the ways it’s not a bad question because that is what I do as a CLR. But as a CLR I’m really more engaged in active litigation. I go to mediation I have to do sometimes I do mediation or settlement conferences for people I have to participate and be conferred with just like any other attorney on a case I go litigate and are you representing the kids?
I’m representing the kids’ best interests. So that means I take consideration their wishes. I have to figure out how to get their thoughts and wishes into court through evidence and testimony, just like any other attorney would, and I often the statute allows me to expand, even if they give me a very narrow role, I can say you know, I think actually we have a bigger issue with this and I need to expand the role because that would be in the best interest of the children. So it’s an active litigation role, more like a guardian ad litem would be an independence and neglect active case, so that PCDM same skill set really, you know, just a different phase of the case and a different type of appointment. But you’re not wrong that you know I do mediation, I do PCDM and I do the child legal representative and all of that involves the same skills.
0:49:25 – Cynthia Roberts
And that’s what these cases need, I think, rather than and I love CFIs, but I’m a CFI these cases need a CLR more than they need a CFI, because the CFI report can be helpful, I think, to give you direction, or to give me direction as a supervised visitation specialist, or to give me direction as a supervised visitation specialist. But having a CLR ensures I mean, working with you is drastically different than working with two attorneys and no one’s the middle ground. With you, things get done, and when I’m working with two attorneys, nothing gets done. Everything’s back and forth in court constantly. It’s miserable. Also, another thing that’s really difficult is attorneys who are advocating for their clients tend to not treat professionals like myself with courtesy respect. They bully us, they intimidate us. They’ll find out where you live and send a subpoena to your home at 11 pm midnight A subpoena to testify.
A subpoena to testify, instead of just emailing you and saying, hey, cynthia, what’s the best way to subpoena you If they don’t like you? They will make your life a living hell and that is really unfortunate. I’ve dealt with a few attorneys who have bullied me to the point where it’s been so miserable like harassment essentially and it’s really really difficult and it makes my role a lot harder. I’ve had some cases where I’ve had to bring it to a family court judge and they say, oh, you’re not, you know, a client in this case. So you have to go through these legal routes and this legal route and this legal route, and that makes it really complicated.
0:51:23 – Krista Nash
Well, you mean you can’t even like bring it because you’re not a party, so they can’t. You can’t do anything, yeah.
0:51:29 – Cynthia Roberts
Yeah, so I would have to get my own counsel go through a different court and, you know, possibly report them to their ethic board, and but who wants to do all that Sometimes? I just want to let the judge know. Hey, you know, for the past five nights I’ve been getting a subpoena, every single night at my house at 11 PM and I feel unsafe, I feel uncomfortable, I feel threatened and you know I’ll have attorneys call me and leave a message for me. They’ll send a subpoena that day and they’ll say you need to sign it. You know, by today or I’m preparing a motion to hold you in contempt in court.
0:52:08 – Krista Nash
Is that, without even ever reaching out and saying, will you waive service, and all of that.
I mean it’s just sometimes the tenor you know I really respect and like almost all of the family law attorneys, right, I mean there’s some bad seeds, but it’s just.
There’s something about the nature of this business. When you are in that lawyer’s seat for a parent, it is very hard to not. I mean, we’re all at fault if we act that way, though I mean there’s no excuse for acting the way we’re talking about. But there’s a difference between and that’s part of the problem and part of why I’m doing this whole podcast is just trying to be more collegial. There’s a way to advocate while being professional, while being a vigorous advocate for your client, but also trying to do what’s best for kids. And you know I get frustrated when I have attorneys that’ll say you know they’ll say one thing to me on the phone when I’m talking and confirming with them about something, and then they get on court and they kind of look down and won’t even look me in the eye and they say something completely different and they won’t even manage their clients and try to help them do what’s right.
You know, and that’s where I get frustrated with the bar, because it’s like, clearly you don’t need to be going as far as you’re going and we could be managing this case better. So for the attorneys that have done that to you, I apologize on behalf of the bar. No one should be treated that way, and you know we don’t. This work is hard, it’s exhausting. I mean. Most of the time when people get on the phone, all of us were like, oh how you doing this is rough, we’re so busy. It never ends.
0:53:41 – Cynthia Roberts
Yeah, every attorney I know is so quiet in their life outside of work. Yeah, like, what are you doing? I’m nothing, just at my house.
0:53:51 – Krista Nash
Yeah, I mean, the pace and the volume and the level of toxicity that we are all exposed to is real and we can at least be kinder to one another and maybe that would overflow to doing what’s better for kids, because we don’t want to burn out professionals. I mean, I love that you’ve done this company that does all these different things because, you’re right, there aren’t very many people doing this and it’s very, very important so that we can get kids on track safely to be with their parents and to see if they can be with both, because, unlike the dependency and neglect world, we’re not going to terminate rights. Yeah, it doesn’t happen. So a parent could be in the system of the domestic courts for till their kids 18 and child support 19 years old. So we keep coming back and back and back, and that’s what you were speaking to earlier. So getting that conflict down amongst professionals and amongst the co-parents is just so important. I think that you see that every day in your work with your people.
0:54:51 – Cynthia Roberts
Yeah, and what I also experience is parents who abuse their children.
They start to abuse the system, they start to abuse the other parents’ finances, they start to abuse the professionals working with them. And you know it could be you know I’ve been grateful to not have any you know founded complaints against me, because I do make sure to cross my T’s and dot my I’s and treat everyone with respect and make sure I’m neutral and doing things extremely ethically at all times. But when I’m dealing with high conflict parents is they start to abuse me and then it’s frustrating. When I’m getting the abuse from parents, I’m getting the abuse from attorneys and then I go to court to tell the judge hey, this is what’s going on in this case, and the judge says well, you’re not a party, right, right, that just kind of happens a lot. So I do think that it would be a better process for us all. We could all take a deep breath, not take things personally. And just because maybe a professional is finding concerns with your client doesn’t mean you have to belittle, attack or try to destroy people’s personal lives.
0:56:12 – Krista Nash
Well, I’m sorry you’ve gone through that. It’s too much really. So well, as we end, what last message would you have, maybe for parents and for kids?
0:56:21 – Cynthia Roberts
For parents and for kids for supervised visitations. If you are a visiting parent that are in visitations, my recommendations to you would be to make the best out of your situation and to focus on what you can, take accountability for what you’re responsible for and make it a positive experience for yourself and for your children. It’s there, it happened, you know, to you.
Sometimes we do have visiting parents who are victims of domestic violence being falsely accused, and other times it takes two to tango and other times the visiting parent you know has concerns that need to be addressed. But no matter what it is for visiting parents, if you could focus on what you can do to be a better person, parent, and make it more positive, you will wind up reaping more benefits from this and it won’t turn back and be traumatizing for your child because they’ll look back and say, hey, you know, my mom did the work or my dad did the work that they needed to do. It was a really tough time in our family and you know, and you can look back and say I followed my treatment plan, I did what I was supposed to and I got through it. Sometimes it seems never ending for a visiting parent who’s in these types of situations.
And there is hope at the end of the tunnel when you start to focus on what you are in control of.
And for the non-visiting parent, my advice to you would be to not control or limit visitations and to kind of step back and let the supervisor take care of things that maybe you were taking care of in the past, and to make sure that you support and encourage your child in having a safe relationship with the other parent and for both of the parents, to make sure that what you can do to reduce conflict in your case is to speak positive about the other parent’s attributes.
Children have an intrinsic belief, knowledge that they come from you and they come from the other parent, and, because of that, point out only the positives in each parent, at all times, every single day, and that can help reduce conflict. I also recommend using what is it called Civil communicator. I don’t represent them, but civil communicator automatically filters out communications between parents and it’s different than talking parents because it doesn’t allow abusive, demanding or inappropriate conversations that are not child-centered. So if you’re looking for a parenting app to communicate safely with your co-parent on, I would recommend Civil Communicator, because your communication, being responsive and respectful, is a game changer for your case?
0:59:27 – Krista Nash
Hmm, and then, lastly, what about for kids? What would you say to them?
0:59:32 – Cynthia Roberts
I would say that I understand that your parents are going through conflict and that you feel that you are in the middle, and I want to reassure you that there are professionals who care about what you feel and who care about how this all makes you feel, and that your voice is important and it should be valued and heard and respected. And I would also tell children that it’s important to have mutual, safe relationships with your parents and that if you feel unsafe, you should always feel comfortable to open up and speak your truth, no matter how it how it impacts your relationship with either parent. You’re important and you deserve to feel safe.
1:00:23 – Krista Nash
Well, cynthia, thank you for doing this with me. I am so grateful. It’s a privilege to work with you and to have this breadth of time to learn. I know I’ve learned a lot. I hope anybody listening learns a lot, and I’m sure people will reach out to you to get your services. You’re really very helpful to so many families, so thanks so much for doing this with me today.
1:00:41 – Cynthia Roberts
Yeah, thank you so much.
1:00:42 – Krista Nash
All right, take care.
1:00:44 – Intro/Outro
Thanks Bye, thanks Bye. Krista is licensed in Colorado and Wyoming, so if you are in those states and seek legal services, please feel free to reach out via childrenfirstfamilylawcom. That is our website, where everyone can find additional resources to help navigate family law. As always, be sure to like, subscribe and share the podcast with others you think would benefit from this content.