Sunflower Kids: Volunteering and Experiencing Visitations

As I explained in my first blog post, my first visit at Sunflower Kids was a great one. I got a lot of calling done for donations, and was able to gain valuable experience regarding calling various organizations. One aspect of my visit that I did not go into depth in was the visitations that occurred while I was there. I was able to experience this while sitting at a desk, able to observe and really take in what was happening. It was different than what I expected, but I was glad I was there to see the visitations.

Parent & child visting, enjoying playing.

Basically, one of the guardians who is visiting the child arrives, and goes into one of the visiting rooms. These rooms are glass- so they are see through and easily observed. They are also monitored with cameras, making it easy to keep tabs on what is going on in each room. The guardian waits in the room while the child is being dropped off. The children and guardians all seemed very familiar with the process. The little child ran into the room into her dad’s loving embrace. It was emotional seeing this happen- they had obviously gone a long time without seeing each other. The guardian brought the child dinner- her favorite kid’s meal, and together they picked out a movie. There were talks of games, school work, and proud moments the child shared from school.

Overall, my first experience was filled with learning new skills and becoming more aware of things that occur in our town. I realized how valuable this service is- it provides a secure environment for relationships to continue in. I was so happy to be able to see how excited the family members were to be visiting each other. Tomorrow I visit Sunflower Kids again, and I can not wait to see what I will be doing then!

See you next time!

Check out this interesting essay to see why supervised visitations are important: http://www.nyspcc.org/wp-content/uploads/Final_PublicationAFCCSupervisedVisitation_en-us.pdf

Images via googleimages.com.