An Interview with Dr. Mark David Roseman
Founder and CEO | The Toby Center for Family Transitions | Established 2010
For nearly three decades, Dr. Mark David Roseman has dedicated his professional work to helping children and parents navigate the emotional challenges of separation, divorce, and family restructuring.
His involvement in supervised visitation began in 1997, including the development of a visitation program in Rhode Island through the Children’s Rights Council. His subsequent work with the organization in Washington, D.C., helped shape a philosophy that continues to guide his work today: children deserve opportunities to maintain safe, healthy, and meaningful relationships with their parents, even when family circumstances are difficult.
In 2010, Dr. Roseman founded The Toby Center for Family Transitions, a nonprofit organization offering supervised visitation, monitored child exchanges, therapeutic visitation, reunification services, and other family-centered interventions.
Today, The Toby Center serves families in Florida, Connecticut, and Massachusetts, while working to develop partnerships with communities where access to these essential services remains limited.
At the heart of its mission is a simple belief: Children deserve more than protection from family conflict. They deserve opportunities for connection, healing, and hope.
Q. High-conflict custody disputes often disrupt parent-child bonds. How do supervised visitation and monitored exchanges safeguard children while maintaining essential parental relationships?
Dr. Mark Roseman: When parents separate, the emotional consequences for children can be profound. Children may experience confusion, anxiety, divided loyalties, and fears about losing an important relationship with a parent.
Having worked with separating families since 1997, I have witnessed how prolonged parental conflict can interfere with a child’s sense of security and belonging. I have also witnessed the remarkable resilience of children when they are provided with safe, supportive opportunities to reconnect with a parent.
At The Toby Center, we view supervised visitation as more than a protective service. It is also an opportunity to strengthen family relationships.
Our trained Family Monitors help create safe, structured environments where parents and children can spend meaningful time together. They observe interactions, maintain appropriate boundaries, and support positive experiences while remaining attentive to each child’s emotional and physical well-being.
Monitored child exchanges serve a complementary purpose. By providing a neutral third party during transitions between parents, we can help reduce the likelihood that children will witness arguments, hostility, or other distressing encounters.
Our broader philosophy recognizes that family relationships exist along a continuum. Some families require close observation, while others benefit from supportive visitation, therapeutic intervention, or a gradual transition toward less restrictive arrangements. We have developed a continuum of family connection services to respond to these different needs.
I believe our responsibility is not simply to supervise a visit or facilitate an exchange. It is to help create conditions in which children can feel secure, parents can demonstrate appropriate parenting behaviors, and healthy relationships have opportunities to grow.
The goal is not supervision for its own sake. The goal is to help families move toward safer, healthier, and more independent relationships whenever possible.
Q. Parental alienation and child estrangement represent significant risks during contentious divorces. What specific clinical and therapeutic methods does your team use during reunification therapy to repair damaged bonds?
Dr. Mark Roseman: One of the most painful experiences for any parent is the loss or deterioration of a relationship with a child. Equally troubling is the emotional burden experienced by children who become disconnected from a parent during prolonged family conflict.
Throughout my career, I have come to appreciate that parent-child estrangement is rarely a simple matter.
A child’s resistance to contact may involve negative parental influences, prolonged separation, unresolved conflict, past parenting experiences, or legitimate concerns about safety and emotional well being. We must therefore approach each family without preconceived conclusions about the causes of estrangement.
Our therapeutic philosophy emphasizes understanding the child’s experiences, recognizing family dynamics, and creating opportunities to rebuild trust when clinically appropriate.
Qualified clinicians may use attachment-informed interventions, family systems approaches, therapeutic communication, emotional regulation strategies, and carefully structured parent-child interactions.
A central principle is that trust cannot be demanded. It must be earned through consistency, empathy, accountability, and emotionally responsive parenting. We also recognize that parents themselves may need guidance in understanding how their behaviors and communication patterns affect their children.
The Toby Center’s continuum of services allows families to receive different levels of support, from supervised visitation to therapeutic visitation and more intensive reunification interventions.
Not every family is ready for the same level of contact, and not every case is appropriate for reunification. Safety, clinical assessment, and the child’s individual needs must guide the process.
Our objective is not to force a relationship or predetermine an outcome. It is to help families identify the conditions necessary for healthier relationships to develop.
Healing begins when we stop viewing children as participants in parental disputes and begin recognizing them as individuals with their own emotional needs, experiences, and relationships.
Q. Traditional supervised visitation often takes place in sterile office environments. Why does your organization prioritize natural community settings like parks, museums, and family restaurants for these sessions?
Dr. Mark Roseman: This question touches upon one of the most important lessons I learned during my early years developing supervised visitation programs.
Children build relationships through ordinary experiences. They remember playing ball with a parent, sharing an ice cream cone, visiting a museum, enjoying a picnic, or simply walking together in a park. These everyday moments contribute to emotional attachment and create memories that help define family relationships.
When I began developing visitation programs in Rhode Island and later expanded my work through the Children’s Rights Council, I became increasingly interested in how supervised visitation could provide more natural opportunities for parent-child interaction.
That philosophy became an important foundation of The Toby Center when I established the organization in 2010.
Whenever circumstances permit, we encourage supervised visits in familiar, family-friendly community environments. A park may provide opportunities for physical activity, cooperation, and spontaneous play. A museum may encourage curiosity and shared discovery. A family restaurant may allow parents and children to enjoy the simple pleasure of having a meal together.
These environments also provide our Family Monitors with opportunities to observe parenting skills in everyday situations.
Of course, community-based visitation must always be guided by safety considerations, court orders, and the individual needs of the family. Some situations require more controlled environments.
We also recognize that community organizations, recreational facilities, libraries, museums, and faith based institutions can become valuable partners in helping families reconnect.
Our vision is to make supervised visitation feel less like an institutional requirement and more like an opportunity for children and parents to experience the positive moments of family life.
Q. Effective co-parenting requires clear boundaries and conflict reduction. How do your parenting coordination and family court mediation programs help parents shift focus from legal battles to child well-being?
Dr. Mark Roseman: One of the most important messages I share with separating parents is that while their relationship as partners may have ended, their responsibilities as parents continue.
Children should not be expected to manage their parents’ disagreements or become messengers between two households. Unfortunately, when conflict becomes entrenched, even routine parenting decisions can turn into prolonged disputes.
The Toby Center’s parenting coordination and family mediation services are intended to help parents develop more constructive approaches to resolving these disagreements.
Family mediation provides eligible, self-represented parents with an opportunity to discuss parenting arrangements and other child-related concerns in a structured, neutral setting. Parenting coordination can help parents implement existing parenting plans, establish clearer communication practices, and resolve recurring disagreements.
These services emphasize practical problem-solving, appropriate boundaries, and accountability.
They are not suitable for every family. Domestic violence, coercive control, child abuse concerns, and other significant safety issues require careful screening and may make these interventions inappropriate.
My broader philosophy is that effective co-parenting does not necessarily require friendship between former partners. It requires an understanding that children benefit when adults can reduce unnecessary conflict and place their children’s needs ahead of personal grievances.
Sometimes this means helping parents communicate more effectively. In other situations, it may mean establishing structured boundaries that minimize direct interaction while preserving parental responsibilities.
Ultimately, we want parents to move away from the question, “How do I win against the other parent?” and toward a more constructive question: “What can I do today to make my child’s life more secure, peaceful, and emotionally healthy?”
Q. Nonprofit service providers face ongoing resource constraints when serving court-mandated families. How are partnerships and community support expanding access for families who cannot afford court-ordered child services?
Dr. Mark Roseman: This is one of the most pressing challenges facing families and the professionals who serve them.
For many parents, separation or divorce brings significant financial hardship. Maintaining two households, paying legal expenses, arranging transportation, and meeting ordinary family obligations can leave very little money for court-ordered services. Yet these are often the very services necessary to preserve or rebuild a child’s relationship with a parent.
When I founded The Toby Center in 2010, I wanted to develop an organization that recognized both the emotional and financial realities facing separating families.
As a nonprofit organization, we have sought to improve accessibility through income-sensitive fees and collaborative relationships with courts, child welfare agencies, community organizations, and family serving professionals. But there is much more that can be accomplished.
I believe that expanding access to supervised visitation and family reunification services requires a community-based approach. Courts, attorneys, mental health professionals, civic organizations, faith communities, charitable foundations, businesses, and individual donors can all play important roles.
Community partnerships may help identify appropriate visitation locations, support families experiencing financial hardship, expand professional referral networks, and encourage the development of services in underserved regions.
I would particularly like to extend an invitation to communities where supervised visitation, monitored exchanges, or family reunification services are unavailable, limited, or difficult for families to access.
We welcome conversations with judges, court administrators, child welfare agencies, family professionals, community leaders, and nonprofit organizations interested in exploring how The Toby Center might help address these needs.
Our experience serving families in Florida and New England has demonstrated the importance of developing services that respond to local circumstances.
We do not believe that every community needs an expensive new facility to begin addressing these challenges. With appropriate professional staffing, community partnerships, and carefully developed operating procedures, it may be possible to establish accessible services using existing community resources.
As we look toward the future, our vision is to help more communities develop sustainable, compassionate, and professionally accountable family connection services. We also hope to expand philanthropic support so that financial hardship does not unnecessarily prevent children from maintaining safe and meaningful relationships with their parents.
After nearly three decades in this field, I remain convinced that strengthening parent-child relationships is not simply a matter for the courts or individual families. It is a responsibility that communities can share.
When we help a child maintain a safe, loving relationship with a parent, we are investing not only in that child’s future, but in the health and well-being of our communities.
A Message to Communities and Family Professionals
Does your community need supervised visitation or family reunification services?
The Toby Center for Family Transitions welcomes inquiries from courts, child welfare agencies, family professionals, community organizations, and local leaders interested in expanding access to safe, supportive parent-child services.
Whether your community has limited existing resources or is exploring the development of new family connection programs, we invite you to begin a conversation with us.
Together, we can explore opportunities to strengthen families, support children, and build healthier communities.
The Toby Center for Family Transitions | Established 2010 | A 501(c)(3) Nonprofit Organization Serving Florida, Connecticut, and Massachusetts
