Thursday, June 30, 2011

Sloppy court interview

At court yesterday, I was given the following report (with names changed):
Children: Mary age 14, Jenny age 11

At the direction of the court Mary and Jenny were interviewed separately on June 16, 2011. Both girls said that they are okay with supervised visitation with their father for 4 hours one time per month. They acknowledged that it is somewhat difficult to schedule because they both have very busy schedules. Mary is a dancer and Jenny plays competitive soccer.

XY Supervisor, LCSW, reported that she withdrew from being the visit supervisor for this family. Ms. Supervisor said that it became apparent that her efforts in assisting Father were not helpful to Father. She also said that it is important that the children get to have a say about the locations of the monthly visits.

Respectfully submitted,
Nancy Virostko, LCSW
Family Law Investigator
6/16/11
I don't get the point of this report. Our kids have been forced to live under rules laid down by the court. They have resigned themselves to accept what the court orders, and that is all that came out of this interview.

Why is the court sending a social worker to ask 14 and 11 year-old girls to ask them about the difficulty in scheduling visits with their dad? Is dance more important than having a father?

I think that in a few years we will have a consensus that all child interviews should be video-recorded. I have no record of what my kids were asked, except for this report.

This supervisor dropped out after I asked her to correct some errors in her last report. She said that I violated some gym rules, but I double-checked with the gym, and it was the supervisor who misunderstood the rules. She stubbornly refused. I told her that this was just the latest of several negative comments in her reports that made no sense to me. I asked her to meet with me to explain why she says such things. She refused. I really don't see how she can call herself a "therapeutic supervisor" if she is unwilling to give me feedback in a way that I can understand.

If the supervisor was going to back out, it would have been better to back out without comment. Instead she makes a couple of weird comments. Who wants her opinion about the locations of visits, if she is not going to be involved?

I hope that this is helpful to others. Apparently the judge can, at any time, decide to schedule a court interview of the kids and get a silly report like this.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi,

About the one supervised attendance to the soccer game, it's as though your ex. wants to have you apraded around in front of the community with a "scarlet letter " to affirm something to your kids and community that you are flawed, or dangerous to your kids. Don't go for anything like that. For your kids sake at least. It's another sort of catch-22, don't do it, and it's cause you don't care much about your kids. Do it, and it's a an admission of sorts.

Hang in there.

George said...

You are right. It is all about humiliating me.

Anonymous said...

cricky, exact same experience here, too. Control and revenge, that's the name of the game, and some just can't get enough, because it's not enough that I win, you have to lose.

George said...

The system is evil. I am not going to admit to something that is not true, and which causes harm to my kids.

Anonymous said...

Me, too. Wasn't "violating gym rules" , it was swim meets. Got to the point, that I was watching the meets from such a distance that I was accused/blamed for observing from too far away...

Watch out for these sort of activities, or school events. They plant so called witnesses at them to confirm stupid allegations vs. you.

They don't want you there. They want to prevent you from attending, and blame you for it. It's part of the P.A.S. strategy or something like that.