I agree with you but do not understand why the supervised visits were not held in a place of neutrality (ie.. restaurant, park, chuck e cheese, etc..) I do believe there was a failure in the system that this was not reinforced and I do hope that something positive comes out of this vile act in the sense that in the future, when a parent loses custody of their child(ren) that standard of supervised visits in a public place will be reinforced.
MOO
Supervised visits are always held in the Least Restrictive environments based upon the information known to CPS. There are quite a few reasons to have supervised visits in the family home . . .
relieves family anxiety, allows the children to return to their home and play in their rooms and with their toys, in my experience . . . small children stuck sitting in a bench seat at a McD's (for 3 hours twice a week) is a recipe for disaster for both parent and children. It is NO fun, doesn't help the children and parents to reconnect and learn better relationship and parenting skills when they are miserable being forced to sit still for hours on end.
A park setting is usually much better than a place to eat for supervised visits, but weather dependent makes it difficult.
Generally, children are allowed to visit their parents in their home unless there are compelling circumstances that they are in danger (ie: health hazards in the home, guns/glass/exposed wiring in the home, parent threatens violence or suicide, parents are homeless, etc).
If a parent is violent or acts out or has a history of violence, visits usually take place at the CPS office with LE standing by and a student intern sitting outside of the room documenting what happens during the visits.
To my knowledge, JP was not charged with violence or violent acts towards anyone.
And to be fair. . . . I think we were all shocked at JP's behaviors and evil acts. No one could have predicted this given the facts that we had in this case.
