What authority does the supervision monitor have to prevent or terminate an exchange or visit?
The decision to prevent or terminate an exchange or visit is the right and responsibility of the professionally-trained monitor providing services. This is specified by the Judicial Council Guidelines that are also local rules of court in San Diego. The goal of the professional monitor is create an environment that promotes calm, kind and consistent contact for a child with the parent who is picking up or visiting. Sometimes the monitor is completely unable to create such an environment. This may be due to the fear, anxiety, or illness of a child. Other times it may be an adult who is emotionally and/or behaviorally upset and unable or unwilling to respond to requests to calm down. The supervisor will always make every effort to alter and adjust the environment to meet the goal of contact between a child and a parent. However, each monitor must ultimately make his/her own decision about the potential to de-escalate a stressful situation. It is, therefore, the monitors absolute right to
