In foster care, contact visits with birth families play an important role in relation to the child’s wellbeing, and they may impact on placement outcomes. Contact between foster child and birth parents can have a number of... [ view full abstract ]
In foster care, contact visits with birth families play an important role in relation to the child’s wellbeing, and they may impact on placement outcomes. Contact between foster child and birth parents can have a number of functions, for example, visits have been associated with a greater likelihood of a return home, since they help the child maintain an expectation of reunification with the birth family, increasing the stability of the foster placement and promoting better mental health in the child.
Objective: The aim of the present study was to analyse the characteristics of contact visits between foster children and their birth parents, to examine the quality of the emotional relationship that the children have with their biological parents, and to explore the association between the characteristics of contact visits and the emotional relationship with likelihood of a return home.
Method: In our study, 22 contact visits were recorded on video with the objective to observe and analyze the relationship between foster children and their birth families across three provinces in Andalusia (southern Spain). All this information was exported to the ATLAS.ti v7.0 software. The visits recorded were transcribed and the transcripts were examined using an inductive method of open coding to identify themes among participants’ responses and behaviors.
Results: The results highlight the need to improve contact visits by developing intervention strategies targeted at birth family to improve likelihood of the child return home. These findings have important implications for practice.
Specifically, we have observed the need to train to parents in social skills and good communication. At times, the biological family gives the child false expectations. The biological parents sometimes lie to the children and give them false hopes about returning to live with them. It has long been known that a parent-child relationship characterized by warmth and communication offers a better context for the child’s development. In the presence of warmth and affection, children are more likely to pay attention to what their parents say, to respond positively to child rearing practices and to adapt their behaviour to the rules established by their parents. The findings also suggest that preparation for parents should focus especially on ways of helping birth parents both to acquire positive parenting strategies and to avoid authoritarian and permissive parenting.
Conclusion: After observed an inappropriate behavior during the visits, which have an influence in the quality of emotional relationships, it is necessary explain to the birth families what the benefits of contact visits are, as well as the rules that have to be followed (arriving, saying goodbye, interaction with the child, etc.), and this has to be done using language that they can understand, with the objective to improve the relationship between foster children and their families, and to improve likelihood of return to live with them. In this presentation we will show several examples of the parents’ messages and behaviors during the visits
Keywords: Birth families, contact visits, intervention strategies, return home
