Overview:
Angels Monitoring is the first and only supervised visitation agency nationwide which will make its way to the north Louisiana area.
Angels Monitoring program available to Lincoln Parish courts
Angels Monitoring is the first and only supervised visitation agency nationwide which will make its way to the north Louisiana area.
“We’ve only recently opened in Louisiana. Our business was established in April 2024 in Texas. We’ve expanded to Louisiana, and we haven’t started doing visits just yet, but we are able to start taking appointments immediately,” said Elizabeth D. Smith, special assistant district attorney for the Harris County’s Office. Smith is also an appellate administrative law judge for the Texas workforce commission.
“I decided to go into supervise visitation after working for a family law attorney for a while and realizing that there definitely was a need for supervised visitation, but there weren’t very many agencies available to provide good resources for parents who needed supervised access to their children,” Attorney Smith said.
Parents can volunteer for supervised visits, or they can be ordered through the courts.
“Supervised visitation can happen a number of ways generally the courts order one of the parties to have supervised visits or access to their children, other times parents can agree that based on circumstances there needs to be supervised visits,” explained Smith.
She further said that all monitors are trained through a certified program, and training is included as part of our job in addition to being trained on the national certified supervised visiting platform.
Smith said, “The monitors also are trained in our policies and procedures, which are unique to Louisiana and rural areas. All therapeutic monitors must be licensed clinical social workers, and all monitors must also be CPR certified.”
The agency will assist in any court-ordered visitation needs.
Angels Monitoring provides professional supervised visitation as well as Therapeutic visitation services with some of the highest standards in the country. The program started in California which has the most stringent standards.
Smith said, “We expanded on the standards and have only continued to develop our process further. We have been doing supervised visitation services professionally for over 10 years now and are in eight states.”
How does it work, what kind of background do you need? All of our monitors have been trained and all of our therapeutic monitors have a licensed clinical social worker. Once supervised visits are ordered, either or both of the parents will contact our organization for an intake call. Upon completing the intake process, parents can begin visits based on the provisions and/or restrictions in the court’s order. For parents with no restrictions, those visits may occur at any approved location. For those with restrictions, or those ordered due to domestic violence, visits are restricted to the designated location in their area which is staffed with an armed person at all times. This is also the location where safe exchanges happen.
The agency also provides visitation services when an elderly family member has been taken advantage of financially or has a conservatorship. Therapeutic visitation is very similar to regular visitation services. It is more of a guided visitation. This service is done by a range of professionals.
The agency has one goal in mind. To help children during their most difficult times. With a focus on court-ordered visitation, the agency has seen the widest variety of situations over the years. From the child sex abuse to parents using the child as a tool to get what they want in divorce. During all these challenging times we have always kept our focus on what is in the best interest for the child.