Corpus Christi Center - Closed

Coastal Bend Visitation Center

Center History and Outlook

The Corpus Christi Center for Attitudinal Healing, Inc. is a non-profit organization governed by a volunteer Board of Director's that was established in 1984 as a place for personal growth and understanding. It has been our mission to support individuals and families with dignity, respect, equality and unconditional positive regard while addressing critical issues that accompany personal crisis. The Center achieves this goal by providing a variety of support groups at no cost to the individual or family. The Center offers a variety of support groups from Bereavement to Dealing with a Divorce/Separation. The Center offers groups based upon the needs of our community and available resources.

In 1994, the Coastal Bend Visitation Center was opened to provide a safe secure place for emotionally stressed children whose parents are involved in a divorce or custody dispute or when concerns for the child's safety during visitation is raised. The Center is a result of communication between the Family Lawyers Association and the Child Abuse Prevention Council of South Texas. The groups approached the Corpus Christi Center for Attitudinal Healing and the Center was brought to a reality. The Center's mission strives to build healthy functioning families and children by enhancing the relationship between parties regarding issues surrounding visitation and between those seeking a divorce/separation and promoting non-violence in families. The Center achieves this by providing a place for parents to exchange children for court ordered visitation and to provide a safe secure environment for Supervised Visitation when necessary.

Facilitated Exchange Program allows parents to exchange their children in a neutral environment for weekend/other visitation periods. Since both parents are not present at the same time, children are free to show each parent a true emotional response, a response that is natural to the child, without fear of feeling that the other parent will be hurt or angry with them. This program is also used to enforce visitation when previous attempts by parents to visit with their children has not been allowed by the other parent or when tension between parents causes the child to get caught in the middle of an "emotional tug-of-war". The goal of the exchange program is to take the child out of the middle of the parent's indifferences and assist them in working towards effective co-parenting.

Center also conducts Supervised Visits between parents, grandparents or others and their children. Supervised Visitation is designed to improve the quality of the parent and child relationship and to promote the emotional and physical health, safety, and welfare of children and families who are involved in difficult situations involving accused or documented child abuse and/or neglect, separation, divorce, custody disputes, and paternity issues. Visits are conducted in our 1800 square foot facility with various rooms for the parents and children to visit and play. The rooms are full of toys, books, and activities designed to help families work through this difficult period of transition. Highly trained Case Managers and volunteers monitor the visits and provide written reports on how the parent and child interact. In addition to the Case Managers, the Center contracts with Licensed Practical Counselors and Interns to assist families having trouble working through issues. The Center is open seven days a week from 9:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. Sunday visits, unless prior arrangements have been made and approved by the Executive Director, are scheduled after 1 p.m. to allow staff and families to attend religious services.

October of 1999, the Center was selected as a pilot program for Region 11 of the Texas Department of Protective & Regulatory Services (TDPRS) to begin providing Supervised Visitation between children who are in foster care and their parents on a weekly basis. Before this program, visitation between children in foster care and their biological parents was limited. Since then, our program has been modeled in numerous other regions within the state of Texas.

On January 1, 2001, the Center also started offering Monitored Visitation as part of the transition process for families that have progressed through the Supervised Visitation Program. In the Monitored Visitation Program, the Center sends a Case Manager with the family outside the Center. This program is less structured than the Supervised Visitation Program in that families may go to the park, museum or other activities.

Our main goal for the future is the implementation of the Kid's Korner Program. Center staff developed the concept of the Kid's Korner as we determined that though meeting the needs of ensuring the parent/child relationship, we were missing one key issue. That issue being the behaviors and actions of the parent that led to the use of the Center. Although the Center does work with the families on these issues, the Kid's Korner Program is more "hands on" and structured and is designed to reduce the amount of time families spend on the road towards unrestricted visitation and assists in breaking the cycle of violence that without this type of program, will persist.

Through the Kid's Korner Program, we will tackle these issues by developing goals for each parent. Support groups covering such topics as anger and stress management, parenting techniques and life and positive-growth skills will assist parents towards their goals. This program is designed to assist our parents in modifying the behavior that led to the use of the Center through educating, counseling and group sessions. Support Groups are vitally important in that they allow parents to share and learn from each other.

The Center is also developing a Fragile Families program that is designed to work with young single fathers to overcome the multiple obstacles in their path toward responsible fatherhood to better assist them in providing for their children not only financially, but emotionally.