PULASKI -- Before Safe Haven opened its doors last year, parents who didn't live together were exchanging their children on any neutral ground they could find: inside fast-food restaurants, in parking lots, in the lobby of the county sheriff's office.

In each case, there was a reason the parents didn't meet at each other's homes. Some had drug or alcohol problems. Some were abusive. Some would start fights, often in front of the children.

"They would use the kids as tug-of-war," said Safe Haven's program coordinator, Ellen Mitchell. "The children were just having to go through trauma."

Safe Haven Child Visitation Centers of the New River Valley opened in January 2008 in a building across the street from the Pulaski County Courthouse.

There, parents can exchange their children without having to see each other and children have a safe place to visit with noncustodial parents.

"It really fills a gap that we had," said Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court Judge H.L. Chitwood, who hears cases primarily in Pulaski County. "We really didn't have any safe place."

Safe Haven has been so successful, serving 35 families from as far as Marion, that plans are in the works to open a location in Montgomery County.

Proceeds from the Safe Haven Guns-N-Hoses Charity Softball Game, which will pit deputies and police against firefighters in a game at Calfee Park on Saturday, will go toward operating expenses for Safe Haven's programs.

"It's a good thing they have in Pulaski," said Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court Judge Marc Long, who hears cases in Montgomery County. "I'm certainly supportive of the concept. It's a great thing for the children and families where there is a need."

There are many such centers for supervised visitation around the United States, Mitchell said, but "it's very new to the New River Valley."

The Pulaski site is the only such place in the 27th Judicial Circuit, which includes the counties of Bland, Carroll, Floyd, Giles, Grayson, Montgomery, Pulaski and Wythe, and the cities of Radford and Galax.

Safe Haven's main goal is to keep parents separated during exchanges. Custodial parents come in the front door. Noncustodial parents come in the back door.

"To me, that's the best thing," said Del. Anne Crockett-Stark, R-Wytheville.

Crockett-Stark said she wandered into Safe Haven one day and was so impressed that she wanted to help. She wrote a bill asking for a $50,000 state grant to help fund the nonstate agency. She also requested that the state study the feasibility of having statewide minimum standards for the oversight of supervised child visitation.

Neither effort was successful, but Crockett-Stark said she plans to try again.

"I believe in human dignity, and this creates dignity for all three parties," she said.

In a lot of cases, Mitchell said, children are in the custody of their grandparents and have visits with their parents. She said the she has seen some cases where a parent has been in prison for years and wants to see a child for the first time.

Whatever the reason they end up at Safe Haven, the setup allows children to safely maintain a relationship with their parents, said Ken Hall, Safe Haven's president and CEO.

"That's why we're here, for the children," he said.

Most people are court-ordered to go to Safe Haven for exchanges or visitation. Fees are based on income. So far, Mitchell said, parents who have visited Safe Haven have either been unemployed or earn less than $15,000 annually, so they haven't been charged.

Funding and nonmonetary donations have been received from local community foundation grants, town and county government, businesses, civic organizations, churches and citizens. Safe Haven is run mostly by volunteers and its operating budget for its first year was about $20,000, Mitchell said.

Trained volunteers monitor each visitation or exchange and take notes.

"It's sort of like a test," Mitchell said. Parents who do well at Safe Haven may be granted unsupervised visits later.

"I can send them across the street and know that they can safely exchange the children or have a supervised visit," Chitwood said. "It really protects both sides and it benefits the children."

If a parent shows up drunk, Chitwood said, he knows Safe Haven will turn the person away. He won't have to worry about the child getting in a car with a drunken driver -- or about a mother being assaulted during an exchange or a parent making a false claim against the other parent.

Homeless people who don't have anywhere to go to visit their children are welcome there as well, Mitchell said.

"We are back to back to back with people," she said. Each supervised visit can last only one hour. Exchanges take a matter of minutes.

Mitchell and Hall said it took them only three months to open Safe Haven in Pulaski.

Mitchell has worked as a law enforcement officer and as a dispatcher with the Pulaski County Sheriff's Office, where some parents would meet to exchange children.

"I was in the middle of a lot of bad exchanges," she said.

She and Hall started with nothing but ideas and "a shell of a building," Mitchell said.

Everything inside was donated: furniture, desks, a computer, artwork, a TV, and piles of toys and books for the huge visitation room.

"I think it's been a great success," Chitwood said. "They really just started with nothing and built something based on their hard work."

Though they have no location, funding or volunteers for a Montgomery County site, Mitchell and Hall said they think they can get one open by fall. Then they hope to expand to Floyd County, then Giles County.

"I think there's a need for it all over," Chitwood said. "It gives me a way to make sure the children will be safe."