It’s often in the hands of the judge. I used to work for the contact service and you could have contact reports saying the parents weren’t fit, social workers saying parents weren’t fit- and yet a judge would still recommend them maintaining contact regularly. We would have small children sobbing because they didn’t want to see their parent/s and all we could do was log it on the notes on the system and hope SS could get it back to a different judge for review. It all takes months/years nowadays due to the sheer amount of children in the system. It’s a very complex system and often flawed and she would be considered very low risk compared to many.
One reason she wouldn’t be having contact in a centre is down to space. They are understaffed and oversubscribed as it is, especially since the lockdowns and as she wouldn’t be considered an immediate danger to her children and would be supervised during the sessions, it’s easier for them to have it done this way. Ironically, if she were having contact in a centre locally to me she’d prob be seeing them at least 2x week for a good few hours at a time so actually this way, she sees them less and prob does less damage.
Kieran will have little to no say or control over how much contact she has if it’s being done through the courts and social services so it’s unfair to criticise him for ‘not stopping her’. The whole subject of unfit parenting is a highly emotive and complicated system unfortunately.