Jersey's separated family centre to reopen whilst trialling new regulations

The centre announced it was closing in January 2023. Credit: ITV Channel

A charity that provides a safe space for children of separated parents will trial new standards in a bid to save its child contact centre.

Milli's Separated Children's Centre announced it was closing in January 2023, blaming new regulations brought in by the Jersey Care Commission (JCC).

The community organisation has revealed that, following discussions with the JCC, it will be registering and trialling the standards.

The new standards are statements which set expectations about how different children’s social care services should be provided:

  • Show what people should expect from the care they receive.

  • Set out what the people who provide care must do to meet the expectations of people who use care services.

  • Provide a structure that can be used for inspection.

The draft regulations were adapted from the standards that the National Association of Child Contact Centres (NACCC) uses for supervised contact, even though this isn't a service that the centre offers.

Back in January, Milli’s claimed the draft regulations "redefined the industry understood definitions of various types of contact to bring them all under the definition of supervised contact.

"We wish that we could continue to offer the contact centre as one of our services but the situation is untenable as the regulations enforce an operating structure upon us that effectively makes us a government service disrupting the separation and independence that is necessary for the operation of a child contact centre."

Now the Centre's founder, Denise Carroll, says the supportive messages the charity has received since January shows how much it is needed by Jersey's community.

She says: "It is an unfortunate fact that the standards will negatively affect our work but for the sake of the children and those that need the service the volunteers will, as they always have, go above and beyond while we attempt to continue our work to these standards."

Ms Carroll is urging members of the community to volunteer for the charity if they can give up one Sunday every three weeks.