SUPERVISED VISITATION - SELECTING THE SUPERVISOR

I would imagine in this case, without knowing the facts as they are not set forth in the opinion, that it was difficult for the father to have meaningful supervised visitation with the children when the supervisor was his ex-wife's mother.

Matter of Kraft v Orsini 2016 NY Slip Op 01183 Decided on February 17, 2016 Appellate Division, Second Department (emphasis supplied):

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Here, the Family Court erred in finding that there had been a change in circumstances warranting an award of unsupervised visitation to the father. Two of the experts who evaluated the father concluded that supervised visitation was warranted. Although the father's therapist recommended unsupervised visitation, that recommendation came with several caveats. She recommended that an "objective, nonfamily person" should talk to the children about their states of mind as "a safety precaution." She also advised against any overnight unsupervised visitation. Given the totality of the circumstances, the award of unsupervised visitation was inappropriate (see Matter of Bullinger v Costa, 63 AD3d 735). In the future, the father's visitation should not be supervised by the maternal grandmother, who supervised such visitation in the past, but rather by a person agreed to by the parties or, in the event they cannot agree, by a person selected by the father with the approval of the attorney for the children."