Asked in Child Custody for Tennessee

Q: Is it constitutional to have to pay a supervision fee to see your child?

I was ordered to supervised by a third party agency visitation. It is$75 for a one hour visit. Resulting in unnecessary financial strain on me if I want to visit my child. How is this legal?!

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1 Lawyer Answer
Hannah Burdine
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Answered

A: It depends. While true, that interference with parental rights is interference with one of the fundamental sticks in the bundle that composes our liberty interests, the rights of the child to be safe and secure also must be weighed against the parents rights. There shouldn’t be supervised visits unless there’s been a showing of substantial harm to the child without them first. In most cases, the cost of supervised visits should be borne to the parent who poses a risk of harm to the child without the visits. I’m sure there could be situations where supervised visits might need to be allocated to the other parent though or to both in other situations.

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