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Call to support supervised visitation programs in New York grows louder

Aldrich and Hevesi: “We should be supporting children’s relationships to their parents.”

In an op-ed published in Empire Report last week, New York State Assembly Member Andrew Hevesi, Chair of the NY State Assembly’s Committee on Children and Families, joined CLC Executive Director Liberty Aldrich in calling for a $20 million investment in supervised visitation programs across New York State.  

Liberty Aldrich and Andrew Hevesi

The Issue with Supervised Visitation Programs

Supervised Visitation (SV) programs help children maintain safe, structured relationships with a parent or guardian during Family Court proceedings—especially in cases involving domestic violence, mental illness, or substance use. Visits are overseen by trained professionals in child-friendly environments.

Yet across our state, these programs are in short supply.

  • 28 of 62 counties have no supervised visitation services at all.
  • In NYC, wait times can stretch from six months to a year.

Aldrich’s and Hevesi’s co-written op-ed builds on growing calls for New York to treat supervised visitation as a core part of the state’s child welfare infrastructure, rather than an optional service.

They write: “For children, they don’t understand why they can’t see their parent. They often assume it’s because their parent doesn’t think they’re important, doesn’t care about them, or is in danger and can’t get to them. It wouldn’t occur to children that it’s the system itself keeping them away from their parent. But the parents and the court have done everything they can to maintain this critical relationship: it is simply that we as a State haven’t made sure the services are there to make the visits happen. We are terminating a parental bond through negligence.”

The result of limited funding? Children can lose meaningful connection with a parent—often during a time of instability or trauma.

“We are effectively forcing children into a painful limbo,” Aldrich noted during testimony earlier this year.

Read the op-ed on Empire Report, and learn more about CLC’s advocacy for improved access to Supervised Visitation programs.