Supervised Custody Pilot Program Begins in Philadelphia

In Pennsylvania and New Jersey, family courts have the ability to enter a court order mandating that a person’s custody time with their children be supervised. In Pennsylvania, that would be called supervised physical custody and in New Jersey, supervised parenting time.

A court normally orders that a parent’s time with a child be supervised if there are concerns about how a child will react to time with that parent or if that parent’s prior actions have made a judge think the child could be at risk in an unsupervised setting with that parent. Supervision is not the norm, but it is ordered in a fair number of cases.

Choosing a supervisor to monitor these types of visits can be difficult. The supervised parent usually does not want the other parent to supervise and often is unhappy with the other parent’s family and friends, and the court may not trust the task to a family member or friend of the parent who is going to be supervised. This places the court in a difficult position.

Until March 2020, Philadelphia Family Court offered a unique option for supervision. The court utilized free space in the courthouse at 1501 Arch Street to create an area where supervised periods of custody could take place. Judges in Philadelphia Family Court saw this Family Court Supervision Center as a safe, neutral, free, court-monitored option for supervised custody. Unfortunately, in March 2020, when the Philadelphia Family Courthouse shut down due to the COVID-19 pandemic, so did the Family Court Supervision Center. When the court reopened a few months later, the courthouse no longer made available the space for supervised custody time.

Now, for the first time since March 2020, Philadelphia Family Court is offering an option for families who need third-party supervision in their custody matters. The new program is being run through WES Health System and is no longer located in the courthouse itself, and there is a new process for using the program.

When a Philadelphia Family Court Judge orders that one or more parties in a custody matter are required to be supervised during their custodial periods, the judge also can order that this supervision happen at the WES facility. When that order is issued, a referral is automatically made to WES, which then contacts the parties to schedule the periods of supervised custody at a specific WES location. The idea is that a judge specifies the duration and frequency of the visits in the order, then a WES worker coordinates with the parties.

All parties are expected to comply with the rules of the WES facility and the court-ordered schedule. And WES is required to keep a visit log to provide to the parties and the court, if necessary. The log helps verify that everyone involved is following the custody schedule in the underlying court order.

The new WES program is an excellent option for families who need parenting time to be supervised, and it improves on the prior system by increasing monitoring. In the past, when a judge ordered supervision, it was up to the judge whether that requirement was part of a final custody order, which remains in place until modified by the court in the future at the request of one of the parties, or a temporary custody order, which is in place for a short period until a specifically scheduled court hearing. Under the new program, when a judge orders a family to engage with the WES Supervised Custody Program, that directive is always part of a temporary order, meaning that the supervision requirement is definitely monitored and reviewed by the court to ensure the goals of the supervision are being met.

The WES Supervised Custody Program became operational on Oct. 18, 2023. If you believe your family should be engaging with the program, or if you have any other questions about your family law matter, please do not hesitate to contact the family law attorneys at Willig, Williams & Davidson for guidance.