Prime Time Child Contact Centre, is the working name of Prime Time Charity, a charity created to restore the hearts of the fathers & mothers to the children and the hearts of the children to the fathers. We help people having difficulties reaching agreement about children's issues.
Prime Time’s goal is to help families, through provision of a supported & supervised child contact centre to restore relationships. It was originally founded to meet the basic needs of all families in the Peckham and South London area and now assists families in Greater London.
The centre is 100% volunteer-led and we welcome applications from volunteers interested in working with us at all levels of the charity. We are offer equal treatment for all and no family shall receive less favourable treatment or be discriminated against on the grounds of race, colour, nationality, ethnic or national origin, religion, belief, gender, sexual orientation, marital status, disability, income or age.
For those clients who specifically "opt in" and request a Christian approach, we can offer prayers led by the following principles: we are committed to the principles of the Christian faith as taught in God's inspired word, the bible, particularly salvation from sin by the grace of God through faith in Jesus Christ, God incarnate, who died on the cross, rose from death, ascended into heaven, indwells Christian believers through the Holy Spirit and will return in glory.
Supported contact
We are primarily a supported contact centre and provide supported contact services which provides a safe place to re-introduce a non-resident parent into a child’s life. Our centre is a neutral venue where children will develop and maintain positive relationships with non-resident parents or other family members.
Referrals will usually be made by courts, solicitors or you can self-refer. This service is suitable for families where no significant risk to the child(Ren) has been identified. Often, several families will be in a contact room together and rather than having close supervision, supported contact provides assistance to families in a safe space. Supported contact acts as a stepping stone to better family relationships and more relaxed contact arrangements.
Supervised contact
Prime Time offers Supervised contact for low risk families where there is no history of substance misuse or mental health difficulties. It assists in building and sustaining positive relationships between a child and the significant members of their non-resident family. The supervision will consist of a skilled contact centre team member supervising the entire session on a 1-to-1 basis and intervening immediately where necessary.
Prime Time do not record the session in detail or supply supervision notes of these session and if you think you might require notes for court proceedings, then we would recommend you approach another centre which can be found at www.naccc.org.uk We will only provide notes of sessions where a child protection referral needs to be made to the relevant children’s services i.e. where the supervisor observes neglect or abuse of the emotional, mental, physical or sexual abuse categories.
Family mediation
Family Mediation is a process by which people negotiate face to face about their finances or children with the assistance of a neutral third person, often a mediator solicitor or counsellor. It’s an opportunity to jointly agree what the best interests of your children are as well as your own needs. It is future focussed, helping you to reduce the intensity of conflicts and reach long lasting decisions together. Where families are on the verge of a break-up or have separated, family mediation eliminates the need for courtroom battles and solicitor costs or delays and our family mediation is confidential except for the sharing of financial information in divorce proceedings or where there is serious risk to children.
Our specialist family law mediators assist people who are having difficulties in their family relationships e.g. between married or unmarried partners, parent & child etc. and is most commonly used for child contact/residence issues; child maintenance, financial settlements or divorce settlements. Family mediation provides that safe environment to work through obstacles. The family mediator is non-judgmental, unprejudiced and you both must be willing to attend the family mediation centre voluntarily.
Our family mediators have legal and counselling backgrounds and will exercise peacekeeping skills during the family mediation process. We would normally use either one or two family mediators during each family mediation session depending on the complexity of the issues e.g. whether there have been recent allegations of domestic violence or there are any mental health problems.
