Family Bridge Visitation and Community Services Center’s vision is to offer several programs to enhance the lives of families here in Douglas County and the West metro area. Supervised and supported visitation is the first of several services Family Bridge will offer. With the help of several community and corporate partners, including Cornerstone Baptist Church, Faith In Action, Hands On Atlanta, Behr Paint, The Home Depot and Vulcan Materials, Family Bridge began providing services to Douglas county families in November 2014. Family Bridge has been richly blessed with the support of many community volunteers and stakeholders who gave their time, talent, and resources enabling Family Bridge to begin serving children and families in crisis.

Joy Bates and Ann Mathis are Co-Founders of the organization and believe in a holistic approach to address the needs of children,  families, and individuals. Whatever the area of need might be, Family Bridge purposes to assist directly or connect the person with appropriate resources to meet the need.

Beginning in August 2015, Family Bridge began offering the Darkness to Light Stewards of Children Child Sexual Abuse Prevention Training to adult community members in Douglas County. This nationally recognized program educates and empowers adults to recognize and respond to child sexual abuse.

Previously, Family Brigde was located in Lithia Springs, GA. In January 2018, Family Bridge Visitation and Community Services Center moved to a new location in Douglasville, GA. Our new location continues to  provide a safe and welcoming environment for children to visit with their parents and family members; the children and visiting parent(s)/family members can enjoy their visit in a private, child-friendly room where visits are monitored by a trained, volunteer visit supervisor who is neutral to the family situation and will document the interaction and activities of the visit.

To support successful visitations for children and families, the center offers three private  rooms for visitation.  The rooms are furnished in a manner  to support  visitation with infants, toddlers, tweens, and teens. Dining tables are provided to encourage family meal sharing.  Family Bridge offers families the chance to interact in a more natural, family-centered space, maintaining connections, and fostering healing and growth.

Family Bridge Supervised Visitation and Community Services Center in Douglasville, GA supplies volunteer monitors and visitation rooms for visits allowing non-custodial parents the time and opportunity to establish, maintain, and/or strengthen the familial bond. Supervised Visitation may be required by the court for many reasons; including problems with divorce, domestic violence, abuse or neglect or simply an unusual period of time in which the child has not seen the parent and needs to become reacquainted.

Family Bridge recognizes that supervised family visitation − or supported family visitation − is an important component in child welfare cases in which children have temporarily been removed from their parents’ or guardians’ homes for abuse or neglect. This service allows a parent to visit with their child in a safe, home-like environment with visits monitored and documented by trained volunteer visitation specialists, monitors, or licensed therapists.   Family Bridge gives children and families involved with the juvenile and superior court options for successful visitations. Our staff works to create a schedule and environment convenient to the child and parents. Our goal is to allow family visitations in a safe, non-threatening home-like setting under the supervision and support of a trained coordinator.  On a psychological level, visitation has been considered the most important service for maintaining connections between children and their family and thus easing the pain of separation.