For 25 years the SOS Child Visitation and Exchange Center (CVEC) has been helping parents and children preserve relationships in a safe, neutral environment. The CVEC offers a unique service in the area, providing a place for supervised visits and exchanges, allowing children to build and maintain relationships with parents, even in challenging circumstances. Since it opened, the CVEC has overseen almost 13,000 supervised visits and over 14,000 monitored exchanges, all without a single security incident. To celebrate 25 years of the SOS Child Visitation and Exchange Center serving the local area, the SOS CVEC hosted a pool party for the community on August 8 at Jones Aquatic Center.
CVEC Director Tara Schnakenberg explained how important the Center is for protecting children and fostering family relationships. She said, “I find successes in the small moments.” Schnakenberg explained that seeing a child run into the visitation room and jump into their parent’s arms or jumping up and down when their parent brings their favorite dinner shows the value of the work they do. She notes the impact on parents too. Schnakenberg shared an example of watching a parent who has struggled to maintain sobriety start to reconnect with their children through supervised visits and then transition to unsupervised visits. Providing a safe place for an exchange so that a survivor doesn’t have to interact with their abuser are also successes, according to Schnakenberg. She shared that these are “just a few of the small moments that make a lasting impact. Knowing that CVEC’s services have helped children and families stay safe and be successful after services end is incredibly rewarding.”
The CVEC came about because former Executive Director Susan Moran had seen visitation and exchange centers on visits to other organizations that work with victims of domestic violence and child abuse. Moran saw the need for one locally and had a dream of making that service available to the community. An $18,000 grant in 1998 set things in motion, and the Child Visitation and Exchange Center started seeing clients in 1999. Carla Fessler, first director of the SOS CVEC recalls that in the early years of the CVEC she “felt heard” by local judges who saw value in the work that they were doing. She also said that the community stepped up to support the Center and provide toys, snacks, and other necessities. In the early days, the Emporia Masonic Lodge donated funds to cover fees for families that couldn’t afford them, and the Lodge also provided space for the Center at a reduced rent for many years. The CVEC has also received significant support over the years from the Walter S. and Evan C. Jones Foundation and the United Way. In the early days the CVEC was located in a small office complex, and after a brief time elsewhere, it settled in the SOS Children’s Center in the Emporia Masonic Lodge building before moving to its current location where it is housed along with all SOS programs on C of E Drive. The current location provides the added benefit of outdoor areas for recreation during visits.
The CVEC provides comfortable areas for children to interact with their parent during supervised visits. A supervisor and security are always present during visits and exchanges at the CVEC, and in 25 years, the Center has had no security incidents. Supervised visits and monitored exchanges can be required due to a court order, requested as part of a divorce proceeding, or chosen during a variety of other circumstances. Supervised visitation and monitored exchanges ensure the safety of the child and allow custody exchanges without conflict. At the CVEC, children who are involved in complicated custodial or court-ordered processes spend time with their non-residential parent in a friendly, nurturing atmosphere. The CVEC focuses on the safety and well-being of every child. Monitored exchanges at the Center help eliminate confrontational situations and thus reduce the potential for violence or conflict when parents who have a history of ongoing conflict must exchange children for visitation purposes. While the majority of visits are between children and a parent, extended family members can also take advantage of the service.
The SOS Child Visitation and Exchange Center facilitates supervised visits and exchanges seven days a week during the day or evening to accommodate parent schedules, and they even have the option for doing virtual visits for parents who live too far away to visit in person. While it is the only SOS program that charges a fee for services, Schnakenberg emphasized that they do all that they can to keep that fee affordable. In some years the Center has seen as many as 364 clients in a year, and at times the Center has facilitated over 800 visits and more than 1300 exchanges in one year, showing the need for this service in our area.
The SOS Child Visitation and Exchange Center is located at 1420 C of E Drive in Emporia. It serves clients from Chase, Coffey, Lyon, Morris, and Osage counties, as well as clients from across Kansas and even other states. To learn more, contact the SOS CVEC at 620-342-0076 or send a message to info@soskansas.com. More information is available at soskansas.com/cvec.
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