Photograph by Skye Dunlap
Mother and Child Reunion: Sylina Marquez and son, Myko, 7, spend a few hours a week of supervised time together.
Help for Families in Crisis
Nonprofit facilitates regular visits between noncustodial parents and their children
By Sarah Gaffney
Sylina Marquez sees her 7-year-old son, Myko, twice a week. Each visit lasts two hours. Aside from that, the 45-year-old mother is restricted from having any contact with her child. Divorced since 1998, Marquez was taken to court by her ex-husband, who accused her of child abuse.
"I taught him how to ride his bike without training wheels. ... He fell and ended up with bruises," explains Marquez, whose visits with her child have been under court supervision since June. "He crashed into me a couple of times, too ... then I had to return him to his father, and his father accused me of beating him."
The judge revoked Marquez's joint custody of Myko and ordered supervised visits. Myko's father now has temporary full-time custody of the second grader. The court referred the Marquez family to Creative Family Connections to oversee the twice weekly visits between mother and child until it is determined that she poses no threat to his safety.
Founded in 1996, Creative Family Connections on Park Avenue was created by a group of lawyers, mental-health professionals and parent educators who worked in the family court system and saw a need for a safe, nurturing place where non-custodial parents--95 percent of whom are men--could visit their children. According to executive director Raul Sanchez, supervised visits often took place at police stations and social services departments.
"This whole concept of protecting a child from its own parent is relatively new," Sanchez says. "It's a system designed as a stopgap measure to give the family courts system and the attorneys and the social workers a chance to see what else is going on with this family."
Creative Family Connections employs 15 "monitors" who oversee the parent-child visits between the 120 families served. A monitor sits in the room during the one- to two-hour visits, monitoring the interaction between parent and child. The monitor evaluates each visit, writing a report that is sent to family court to update the judge and lawyers of the relationship between the non-custodial parent and child.
On Wednesday nights, visits take place in the nonprofit's cramped Park Avenue offices. On Sunday afternoons, families meet at Monroe House, a Santa Clara home owned and operated by the Santa Clara County Social Services department. Evelyn Avanti travels twice a week from Santa Cruz to serve as a monitor.
"The primary job is to really ensure the child's safety, physically and emotionally. ... We have to be within sight and sound at all times," Avanti says, describing her responsibilities as a monitor. "But I see kind of my secondary purpose to try to make everyone feel comfortable. Because it's inevitably an awkward situation, and it's not one that anybody wants to be in. Nobody is here because they want to be here. They're here because either they're suffering the consequences of some bad choices that they made or, possibly, because they're the victim of an angry ex."
Photograph by Skye Dunlap
Toy Story: Sylina's twice-weekly visits with Myko are monitored by Creative Family Connections. Myko's father has temporary full-time custody of the boy.
Charlene Della Maggiore, director of programs at the nonprofit, is an early childhood development expert who understands the psychological trauma children undergo from the experience of abuse and divorce. For her, Creative Family Connections helps alleviate some of the pain children suffer from the breakdown of the traditional family unit.
"When you talk about parents going through a divorce, there's always a certain amount of anger and animosity," says Della Maggiore, who is a divorced mother herself. "For us to even be able to allow an exchange to happen between a child and parent that's good and friendly and it's a happy one, that gives that child a much more secure dynamic in their lives."
Creative Family Connections also offers its clients classes on how to help children adjust to the stress of family dissolution and how to parent and co-parent.
Avanti admits that the perception of the non-custodial parent is often unsavory. Whether proven or not, these parents have been accused of being a threat to their children. But Avanti, who interacts most closely with the parents and children, was surprised to discover that she came to like most of her clients.
"My perception of what this job was going to be ... was completely different than the reality of it," Avanti says. "Oh my God, I thought I was going to be with creepy, scary, weird people and feel unsafe ... but they're great, nice people. Most know that their rights are on the line here, and they're really wanting to get their kids back in custody or at least get visitation with them by themselves without someone watching. They're really on their best behavior because they really have a lot to lose."
Marquez complains of losing all influence in her child's life. The Fremont resident is not allowed any contact with her child outside the confines of Creative Family Connections, where the mother and son reunite each week for a few hours of supervised fun.
"I often try to keep his Spanish ability up to par, but I'm not really allowed to speak the language here because they don't understand what I'm saying," Marquez says. "The court order says six hours a week, but because it's expensive for me, I only see him for four hours: two hours on Wednesday and two hours on Sunday. I try to make our time very valuable."
Creative Family Connections will hold its third annual Dinner and Live Auction on Feb. 5 at Palermo restaurant in downtown San Jose. Tickets are $65. All proceeds will benefit the nonprofit's programs and supervised visits. For more information, call 408.278.0150.
Willow Glen, California Since 1992
