Burton upon Trent Child Contact Centre
About Us
The Contact Centre, which has been running for more than 20 years, provides facilities where a parent who, for some reason or other has been unable to maintain contact with their child, can meet with them in a warm, friendly and neutral environment, and the parent with whom the children usually live can be sure that they are safe and secure.
From the child’s point of view, the Centre provides a place where they can meet Mum or Dad and there are plenty of toys and games to play with. Accreditation means that the Burton Centre is recognised as providing a professional standard of support and Courts, Social Workers, and most importantly parents, can refer to the Burton Centre with confidence.
In his narrative report the Assessor says : “Burton Child Contact Centre is a very well run service, offered by passionate volunteers. The service provided is child centred and professional. During the accreditation process volunteers were observed taking the time to reassure and support children who were clearly shy or unsure about being there..”
Contact Centres may provide differing levels of support during contact. We offer ‘supported’ contact only, not ‘supervised’. This means that family contacts are monitored on a group basis and not with one-to-one supervision.
Families can use our Centre also as a hand over point. The Centre is staffed entirely by volunteers and its running costs are met through donations and CAFCASS grants.
Please note we do not write reports or comment on contact sessions unless we feel there is a safeguarding issue. Only dates and times of attendance will be given upon request.
There is an initial referral fee of £30.00 which will cover six sessions at the centre. If you require further sessions there will a further fee of £20.00 to cover the next six sessions. We would hope and anticipate that this will be sufficient for your needs, but if it is necessary to continue there will be further similar payments to be made.
Adult relationships can remain difficult after parents separate. Yet many children want, and need, to maintain a relationship with both parents and other relatives who are important to them.
Not all separated parents find it easy to achieve this. Trust may have broken down. Communications may have become difficult. If so, it may seem almost impossible to make arrangements for a child to spend quality time with the parent or relative they no longer live with.
This is where we can help.
We won’t take sides. We simply aim to help you do what is in the best interests of your child.
Our centre is open each Saturday morning from 10am-12pm (See calendar page for more details). We have several teams of trained volunteers who take it in turns to be on duty at the Centre.
We can arrange staggered arrival and departure times so that you do not have to meet your former partner if you do not wish to. You can find out more about our Centre by going to the visit us page.
We are accredited by the National Association of Contact Centres (NACCC). There are over 300 centres within the national body in the UK.
A message from our Co-ordinator
Coordinator – Paul Mills
Firstly, I would like to say “Hello and Welcome” to Burton on Trent Child Contact Centre and introduce myself.
My name is Paul Mills and I am the Centre Co-ordinator. I have a personal connection to this Centre as I was a father who used this centre 14 years ago to see my son.
I am trained in First Aid, through the Scout Association and I have many years of experience in this field working with parents and with children. Our Centre has a team of very experienced and trained Volunteers who are able to assist all centre users, especially the children, to get the best of their time together.
Please do not hesitate to approach me or any of our Volunteers at the Centre in regard to any issues you might have. We are always looking for any ways in which can improve our service and we welcome any feedback Centre you may have to helps us to achieve this.
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