Children First Of The Rockies

A nonprofit organization

Supervised parenting time/exchanges are not about the parents. Rather it's all about the well-being and safety of the children in our community. Without ongoing contact with their parent, children are at risk of poor school performance and long lasting health impacts such as depression and anxiety.

Testimonials

"Marisa" is now in her forties. Her parents divorced when she was about six years old. At first her parents' relationship was amicable but it got increasingly contentious as time progressed.

For parent exchanges, they were doing what is known as "curbside drop-offs." That's where one parent drives the child to their other parent's home (or agreed location). The dropping off parent stays in their car and the other parent stays in their home.

Marisa said because the family was involved in the court system and social services, and there were arguments and disagreements, these exchanges were stressful.

"I became very worried that there was going to be a fight when we were having exchanges between our parents' houses. That kind of anxiety and stress meant that pretty quickly I had incredibly bad stomach pains leading up to and during any exchanges and usually for a while afterwards. Within about a year of that starting I got bad temporal mandibular joint disorders so my jaw locked up and I would grind my teeth so bad at night that everyone in the rest of the house could hear and there were other health implications for myself as well."

Eventually the family was ordered to do their exchanges in the parking lot of the local police station. Marisa said this was even scarier to her than the curbside drop-offs because there wasn't actually any police presence in the parking lot and there wasn't any buffer between her parents. There's more.

"The other thing about exchanging at the police station was my siblings and I felt this is The Police Department. That's a serious place. It's kind of a scary place. There's power in the police and it was a reminder that there could be danger or that something bad could happen. It did not for me or any of the siblings I've talked to about this reduce our stress in the situation."

This is one of the key differences our services make to families in conflict. When children are receiving services at Children First, they know there are buffers between their parents such as separate entrances, staggered arrival times and our staff who will never leave them unattended.

Providing a safe, secure environment for a child to spend time with their parent means that time will be more enjoyable and more meaningful. It makes a significant contribution to keeping a child and a parent connected while the parent is working on the underlying reason for the supervision.

It is critical for the health and safety of the children in our community that we keep our services affordable and we're asking for your help in doing that.

Mission

Our mission is to foster parent-child relationships in a safe and supportive environment. Our SAFE Services program is designed to ensure the safety and well-being of children and to help families in conflict or crisis improve their quality of life.

Our goals are to provide a nurturing environment in which a child can safely spend time with their parent and to provide a safe, secure place for supervised exchanges of children between their parents.

Background Statement

Our services exist as they do today because of Annie and her children, Levi and Emma, or rather, because of the circumstances that took their lives. Though we began as The St. Vrain Valley Parenting Center, founded as an umbrella of Parenting Place in Boulder in 1998, to offer parent support and education to promote the healthy development of children, we became much more after obtaining our 501(c)(3) in October of 1999. On January 26, 2000, Annie, along with five-year-old Levi and fifteen-month-old Emma were killed by her ex-husband when she dropped the children off for a visit with their father. This tragedy prompted community representatives from our agency, the 20th Judicial District Court, Safe Shelter of St. Vrain Valley, Rocky Mountain Children's Law Center, the Longmont Police Department, the YMCA, and private psychologists and attorneys to come together as a task force to address the critical issue of how escalating violence between separated and divorced parents was affecting the children in those families.

Since 2001, our Parent Education and SAFE Services Programs have emphasized both the prevention and intervention of the trauma and harm children experience due to domestic violence, substance abuse, mental illness, and conflict in divorce. We are the only non-profit agency in Boulder County offering SAFE Services. Though we were not there for Annie, Levi, and Emma, we have been here providing prevention and intervention for hundreds of mothers and fathers taking our education classes and for the families who have participated in thousands of supervised exchanges and supervised parenting time visits.

Our SAFE Services Program addresses two major issues. Monitored exchanges we deal with the issues associated with conflict between parents. Exchanges consist of parents dropping off and picking up children with a 15 minute interval between the exchanges so there is no meeting between the two adults. The opportunity provided by exchanges is to eliminate triggers between the two parents that could have unhappy, unsafe, and harmful impact on the child. Supervised parenting time addresses the issue of families in crisis where parenting is an issue. In providing this service, our staff objectively observes and records the interactions between non-custodial parents and their children for periods of one to two hours during visits at our location in Longmont. The opportunity we provide with this service is the elimination of re-victimization of the child by the parent.

Through our Parent Support groups we support and educate parents in order to intervene in unhealthy parent behaviors and encourage parenting skills that will promote healthy child -parent relationships within an artificial parenting environment. Parents Involved in Education, through a collaboration of nonprofits, seeks to support the Latino community by providing education and support sessions to parents with an emphasis on parents becoming involved in their children's education.

The U.S. Department of Justice, Office on Violence Against Women (OVW) has recognized the importance of Supervised Visitation and Safe Exchange Programs. OVW states that these programs, among other things, protect children from the trauma of witnessing domestic violence or experiencing abduction, injury, or death during parent and child visitation and exchanges and protect parents or caretakers who are victims of violence.

Organization Data

Summary

Organization name

Children First Of The Rockies

other names

CFOR, St. Vrain Family Center

Year Established

1999

Tax id (EIN)

84-1497910

Category

Human Services

Address

2130 Mountain View Ave., Ste 201
Longmont, CO 80501

Mailing

P O Box 2174
Longmont, CO 80502

Service areas

Boulder County, CO, US

Phone

303-485-2055

Other

303-485-2055

Other

303-776-5348

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