What do we know about interventions to improve supervised contact between children in care and their parents: A systematic review

Objectives The research evidence on how best to manage and support supervised contact visits between parents and their children in care is limited, and there is currently no literature that has systematically critiqued... [ view full abstract ]

Objectives
The research evidence on how best to manage and support supervised contact visits between parents and their children in care is limited, and there is currently no literature that has systematically critiqued supervised contact interventions. . A systematic literature review was undertaken to identify supervised contact interventions for children in long term out-of-home care and their parents, and to assess the quality of the evidence these interventions provide. The findings were used to inform the development of a supervised intervention trial currently underway in two Australian jurisdictions – the kContact study.

Method
The literature search was limited to supervised contact interventions with parents and their children in care. Search terms were entered into 18 databases. Colleagues in the child protection field were consulted and unpublished research and evaluations were reviewed on this topic. . Scores were assigned to each of the studies according to the presence or absence of each of seven criteria, with higher scores indicating greater methodological rigour.

Results
Thirteen studies were identified which met the criteria. The scores assigned were low, indicating a generally low level of methodological rigour. Only one RCT was identified. The interventions they were classified into three types, based on the type of intervention: (i) Individual family support, (ii) group programs, and (iii) one educational intervention. Some promising findings were identified: individual family support (particularly tailored, structured parental support) and group programs have the potential to improve parent-child relationships and the quality of contact visits.

Conclusions
The findings from this systematic review indicate that long-term ongoing support of families is needed to facilitate positive changes and improve outcomes for children. However, more rigorous, large-scale, long- term intervention studies are needed to improve the evidence base in this area.