When you first arrive, the adult with you will fill out a form. That form tells the Corrections Officer that someone is there to visit your loved one.

The Corrections Officer may be sitting at a desk behind a window. Once the Corrections Officer has looked at your form, you and the adult with you can sit and relax while the Corrections Officer has someone get your loved one so that they can see you.

When all of the people that have a visitor waiting are ready, a Corrections Officer (likely a different one than was sitting at the desk), will enter the room you have been waiting in to make sure everyone is ready to see their loved one. Part of that check involves each visitor removing anything that is in their pockets (and maybe taking their shoes off) before walking through something called a Metal Detector that looks kind of like a doorway with no walls around it.

There may be lockers to put your things in before your enter. The adult that is with you will help make sure that you are ready.

Once everyone that is visiting has gone through the doorway, or Metal Detector, and is waiting at the door, you will hear a buzz sound that opens the first set of doors. This brings you into a small room that is halfway between the waiting room and the visitor’s room – let’s call it the “Halfway There Room”! Once everyone is in the small Halfway There Room, that first door you walked through will close (it’s a heavy door so it may make a loud noise when it closes) and another buzzing noise will open the second door into the Visitor’s Room.”

While waiting to see your parent you will sit in a room with your caregiver that may look like this.

There are two types of Visitor’s Rooms because there are two types of visits. One is called a “Contact Visit” and the other a “Noncontact Visit.” The Visitor’s Room for a Contact Visit will look similar to this; a big room with long tables and chairs.

For Contact Visits, before you can sit down the adult with you must wait in line to write your names on a piece of paper. Once your names are on the list, the Corrections Officers in the Visitor’s Room will let you know where you can sit when you are seeing your loved one!

You can talk to your loved one on the telephone that’s there. Talking on a phone and looking at your loved one through glass may feel weird at first. To make it more fun, try to think of games you can play with the glass. Maybe paddy cake? Or copy what each other does as if the glass were a mirror!

The person you are seeing will sit on one side of the glass and you and the adult with you on the other.

For Noncontact Visits, the Visitor’s Room may have glass windows and a phone. The person you are seeing will sit on one side of the glass and you and the adult with you on the other. You can talk to your loved one on the telephone that’s there. Talking on a phone and looking at your loved one through glass may feel weird at first. To make it more fun, try to think of games you can play with the glass. Maybe paddy cake? Or copy what each other does as if the glass were a mirror!