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Pinellas rescues visitation sites

Two safe places where feuding parents can exchange children might have closed without the funding.

By MELANIE AVE
Published September 6, 2006

ST. PETERSBURG - Thanks to some temporary financial support, a spouse abuse agency will not have to close two of three parent-child visitation centers at the end of the month as feared.

The Pinellas County Commission recently voted to give the nonprofit CASA $70,200 to help make up for the loss of a federal grant that funded the visitation centers. CASA, which stands for Community Action Stops Abuse, hopes the Juvenile Welfare Board will contribute $70,200 to help make up for one year of funding from the grant.

"What it means is we're out of the woods for the present," said executive director Linda Osmundson.

The agency operates three visitation centers for warring parents ordered by judges to exchange their children at the three safe sites in St. Petersburg, Pinellas Park and Clearwater. The parents never see each other to avoid confrontations.

But in July, CASA was notified it would not receive a two-year, $350,000 federal grant, which it first won three years ago. Last year, CASA served 97 families, overseeing about 1,500 parent-child visits and 375 monitored exchanges.

Without the funding, Kris Nowland, CASA's director of youth education and support services, said the agency would close the St. Petersburg and Clearwater locations. CASA lobbied the county for temporary help.

Between the county's funding and the possibility of support from the welfare board, Nowland said CASA has time to reapply for the grant and seek other more permanent sources of funding for the centers.

"We'll be out there looking," she said.

At their Aug. 22 meeting, commissioners approved the funding for CASA despite concerns that it could prompt other agencies to seek similar help when they lose funding.

CASA is the only organization in Pinellas that contracts with the courts to provide monitored exchanges and supervised visitation of children. Often the families have suffered domestic violence, substance abuse or mental health problems.

Each visitation center provides a uniformed officer and staff member to monitor the visits between parents and their children.

CASA officials see the visitation centers as a form of crime prevention because they keep angry parents apart.

CASA opened its first visitation center in 1996. Three years ago, it expanded its hours and its sites after helping win the county a $342,000 federal grant, which paid about 58 percent of the agency's visitation center budget.

[Last modified September 6, 2006, 00:59:59]