CHILDREN who see their estranged parents under supervision will not be able to meet up with them during the summer holidays because centres providing the service have closed for four months.
Dartford’s Council for Voluntary Services (CVS) has run four Child Contact centres for seven years but is temporarily closing them so it can review and make improvements for the 135 families using them.
Two centres in Dartford, one in Swanley and another in Gravesend enable children tied up in bitter marital disputes to regularly meet the parent who does not have custody.
But the 60 volunteers involved also deal with more volatile situations and the bulk of the cases are referred by courts.
CVS chief executive Jim Baker says the temporary closure has been sparked by the retirement of the child contact manager, providing a chance to review the service while finding a new person to take the helm.
He said: “The negative is some children will not be seeing their parents at the moment. But the positive is we will be able to get things right so more children will see their parents when we re-open.” The review will look at possible changes to keep up with increasingly complex child issues. The centres are expected to re-open in October.
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