Six months into their stay in New Iberia, the organizers of Chez Hope are looking to expand their services in town with a new facility for child visitation. 

Similar to a place the organization has in Franklin, Chez Hope will be opening KKIDSS Iberia, or Keeping Kids In Domestic Situations Safe. 

The facility is a safe visitation exchange center for children, where parents who are court ordered can safely exchange their children in a monitored environment or for non-custodial parents who can interact with their child in a supervised environment. 

“It’s for parents who cannot peacefully exchange children, and who are court-ordered to exchange them,” Chez Hope Director Sherrise Picard said. “If the judge says you can only see your child with supervision, they’re not having to depend on parents, cousins or friends. It’s just safer for the parents and the children.”

The facility, which will be located in Church Alley near St. Peter’s Catholic Church, is the product of a grant Chez Hope applied for last year through the Louisiana Commission on Law Enforcement. The building will be able to either allow parents to exchange a child or for a non-custodial parent to spend time with them under supervision. 

“I was asked by (a local judge) why we don’t have one in New Iberia, and as you know we just started services in New Iberia,” Picard said. “So I approached our grantors and wrote the grant, and they said yes.”

Chez Hope organizers signed the papers on a lease for the building Friday. If all goes according to plan, the facility will be open in March, with a grand opening in May. 

The facility will include monitors who are trained through the Supervised Visitation Network.

April Frederick, who works as a supervised advocate the supervised facility in Franklin, which has been open two years in May, will be heading the New Iberia facility. In Franklin, Frederick said has seen about 30 court orders in one year. 

“Sometimes we get a case where one parent lives in Lafayette and the other one lives in Franklin, and so they would probably utilize New Iberia,” Frederick said. 

“I think it’s definitely going to help us service a wider range of people.”

The process for a couple to use supervised visitation normally occurs when a judge orders supervised visitation or monitored exchanges of a child. Once they comply, they are set up with a schedule with the visitation center. 

Frederick said that former couples who aren’t on the best of terms don’t have to even see each other through the supervised visitation method.

“Our custodials come in through the front, and our non-custodials come in through the back,” Frederick said. 

“They never see each other. We’re a neutral party.”

Picard also emphasized that couples can take advantage of the services even if they are not court-ordered. 

“If there’s an exchange at a parking lot, they don’t have to do that,” Picard said. 

“This doesn’t cost them anything. It’s free.” 

Picard said the location at Church Alley was accomplished with the help of Linell Champagne with McGee Scott Realty and owner Barry Guillotte, who lowered the rent to accommodate the resources of Chez Hope.