About
The Alex & Brandon Child Safety Center provides a welcoming place where families can visit with each other in safety. The center offers a child-friendly space for supervised visitation as well as for safe exchanges (picking up and dropping off children for visits with non-custodial parents) where there has been domestic violence or other safety concerns. The Center is named after four- and five-year-old brothers who were murdered by their father during an unsupervised visit in 1996.
The Alex & Brandon Child Safety Center is the first visitation center in Minnesota built specifically for visitation and exchange purposes, with separate, secure entrances and separation of parents. The Center, located in Brainerd, Minnesota and used by families throughout the state.
Although the Center has gone to great lengths to assure a "user-friendly" nature, safety is the primary concern. Custodial and non-custodial parents arrive at different times and enter different doors; doors between the two areas are kept locked so there is no contact between the parents. Video surveillance cameras monitor both the inside and outside of the building. Outside doors are locked at all times and no one is admitted without identification. Trained personnel are on duty during visitations and exchanges.
Since the doors opened in September of 2000, the Alex & Brandon Child Safety Center has engaged in a variety of activities aimed at achieving the goal of helping families become safe and nurturing members. The most visible of these activities are the supervising of visits and safe exchanges. To date, over 6,900 supervised visits and over 2,800 safe exchanges have been successfully completed.
