The Clearinghouse on Supervised Visitation

Annual Report: Supervised Visitation Database  Case and Client Statistical Analysis
October, 2011
(also available as a .pdf below)

 Karen Oehme, J.D.
Director 

Kelly O’Rourke, MSW
Database Manager

Case and Client Statistical Analysis Results
10/1/2010 to 9/30/2011

Add to Database During this time period: Cases: 2,767 Clients: 11,015 Services: 33,481

W present the results of the annual Clearinghouse on Supervised Visitation’s Database Case and Client Analysis. This report covers October 1, 2010 to September 30, 2011, the 12 months since the last report. A total of 42 supervised visitation programs in Florida contributed information to the database during this time span.

From 10/1/2010 to 9/30/2011 the total number of documented cases was 2,767, the number of clients served was 11,015 (4,572 children, 3,510 visitors, 2,933 custodians/others), and the number of services provided was 33,481. This is the number of completed or terminated services only, and does not include scheduled but cancelled services or no-shows. In the previous reporting period (10/1/2009 to 9/30/2010) the number of services was listed as 25,434. This year’s provision of 33,481 services represents an increase of 8,047 services to Floridians in need.

The amount of missing data was significantly reduced this year (in some cases by 25%), probably due to Clearinghouse training on the database, periodic reminders to programs to enter all data correctly, and users requiring and collecting more complete information for reporting purposes.

Percent vs. Valid Percent – The Percent shown in each table is the percent of the total number of cases showing one particular answer, factoring in any cases for which the data is missing. The Valid Percent is the percent of the total number of cases showing one particular answer but not including any cases with blank cells or missing data. If there is no missing data for a particular variable, then the Percent and Valid Percent will be identical.

Referral Source

In the database, there are seven options for the variable Referral Source. This is now a mandatory variable in that database users cannot continue until this information is inserted. For the most part, the trends have remained steady as Dependency Court continues to be the most common referral source, followed by Domestic Violence Injunctions.

Reason for Referral Condensed

For each case, the database user is required to enter the primary reason for the referral. As in the previous years, “Domestic Violence” is the most often cited reason for a referral to supervised visitation, even for those referrals from Dependency court. The number of DV referrals has risen from 31% to 34% in the past year. A listing and analysis of all 17 options for Reason for Referral broken out, is available upon request.

Primary Service Requested

Each case lists a primary service requested with the available options listed above. “Supervised Visitation” remains by far the most highly requested service.

Person Providing Service

Paid staff members continue to be the main provider of services in Florida’s supervised visitation centers, followed by volunteers, and last, interns.

Child’s Race

According to the 2010 U.S. Census, approximately 63% of the U.S. is white, 12% is black, and 16% is Hispanic. In comparison, blacks appear to be slightly over-represented and whites underrepresented as supervised visitation center clients. However, the percentages have not changed significantly from the previous reports to the current report. The category of “Two or More Races” was added to the database last year and has garnered almost three times more responses than last year, up from 4%.

Child’s Gender

As in previous years, the number of females and males is roughly even.

Visitors Per Case

A large majority of cases had one visitor during supervised visitation, however, many cases had two or more visitors. The following data represents information on the primary visitor in the case.

Visitor Gender

The Visitor is normally someone who does not have custody of the child, but the person with whom the child will have supervised visits. Men and women continue to be almost equally represented as visitors participating in supervised visits.

Visitor Race

The majority of the visitors continue to be white. In previous years, the number of black visitors was slightly higher than Hispanic visitors. However, for the 2010-2011 time frame, the number of black and Hispanic visitors has become almost even.

Visitor Relationship to Child

By far, the most common visitor was a parent to the child client. In previous years, mothers showed slightly higher representation as visitors than fathers. However, this year, visitors are more often fathers.

Custodians Per Case

Most cases had one custodian of note. Those noting 0 custodians were the cases with no data or missing data on the custodian. Possibly, these custodians were foster parents. The following data represents information on the primary custodian in the case.

Custodian Gender

Clearly women were, by far, the most common custodian, the person having legal custody of the child client. It might also be hypothesized that comparing this data to the other data on custodians, single mothers are highly represented in the database. Of note is the fact that the amount of missing data has declined from around 48% to only 25% over the last two years. As previously noted, this may be due to ongoing Clearinghouse training on the database, periodic reminders to programs to enter all data correctly, and users requiring and collecting more complete information for reporting purposes.

Custodian Race

The majority of the custodians continue to be white. In previous years, the number of black custodians was second, followed by Hispanic. This year however, the number of Hispanic custodians is much higher than the number of black custodians. This category shows a 25% reduction in the amount of missing data over the last two years.

Custodian Relationship to Child

By far, the most common custodian was a parent to the child client. Mothers have significantly higher representation as visitors than do fathers. Following parents, grandparents were the next most common category.

Domestic Violence Reported in Referral

In each case, the person entering data is required to note whether domestic violence was a component of or was present in the case. From 2006 to 2010, the number of cases reporting domestic violence as a component of the case declined from 49% to only 31.2% last year. For the 2010-2011 reporting period, the number of cases identifying domestic violence as present increased to 41.7%. It is important to note that domestic violence may be present, yet not reported in the case file or known by the supervised visitation staff and so this number may be even higher in reality.

Implications:

The data reflect Florida’s supervised visitation programs’ consistent service to families. We know that programs are reporting continuing loss of funding from a variety of funding sources, and attempting to do “more with less.” The lack of standards is also a chief concern, resulting in new for-profit providers who do not follow the same best practices as established programs which adhere to the practices as developed by the Supervised Visitation Standards Committee in 2008.

Overall this report indicates that programs continue to provide a valuable service to the community statewide in cases in which complex parental problems such as parental child abuse/neglect, mental illness, substance abuse, and domestic violence are evident.