While children are in out-of-home care placements, it is important to maintain connections with their birth families. Parent-child visits are a key strategy to accomplish this and to work toward reunification of the family. Visiting between parents and their children in foster care is generally considered to be the most important factor contributing toward timely family reunification, a major feature of permanency planning for children in foster care. Hess & Proch (1992) referred to family visiting as the "heart of reunification.” The practice allows the social worker involved to assess the parent-child relationship as well as the level of readiness for reunification. It also provides opportunity to promote the importance of child safety and emotional well-being (Kessler & Green, 1999; Wright, 2001).

What is the role of parent-child visitation in concurrent planning? 
Supervised visitation is face-to-face contact between parents and their children in foster care that is scheduled in advance in a neutral setting. This type of visitation is considered the primary child welfare intervention for maintaining parent-child relationships necessary for successful family reunification.

What is the research base for supervised visitation? 
Research that has been conducted on supervised visitation identifies maintaining parent-child and other family attachments, in addition to reducing the sense of abandonment that children experience during placement as the primary potential benefits of this type of intervention.  Supervised visitation has been found to be strongly associated with the outcomes of placement, particularly family reunification, and with the length of stay in foster care.  According to research, the children who were visited most frequently were more likely to be reunified with their parents and to experience shorter placements before reunification. In addition, researchers have found a relationship between the frequency of the parent-child visits and the child(ren)’s well-being while in foster care. Children in foster care who are visited frequently by their parents are more likely to have high well-being ratings and are more likely to adjust well to their foster care placement than are children less frequently or never visited. Frequent visiting has consistently been found not only to emotionally benefit children in care but also to contribute to the achievement of permanency. Above all, supervised visitation provides the necessary element for the successful return of the child to the parent home.

Source: The California Evidence-Based Clearinghouse for Child Welfare, Supervised Visitation.

Which models of supervised visitation have proven to be effective? 
The California Evidence-Based Clearinghouse for Child Welfare has considered three models of supervised visitation, none of which currently has the necessary research evidence to be given either a Scientific Rating or a Child Welfare Relevance Rating. The following models, however, show promise:

Families Together, a program of Providence Children’s Museum (PCM), was created in 1992 in collaboration with the Rhode Island Department of Children, Youth, and Families (DCYF). The program provides therapeutic visits for children aged 1 to 11 throughout Rhode Island with their parents. These families must have been separated by court order due to abuse or neglect and referred to the program by their DCYF caseworker. These participant families consist of children and their parent or parents, and in some cases extended family members. The family makes a series of visits to the museum, where, under the guidance of the program’s family therapists, they play and learn together. The families visit PCM weekly or bi-weekly for 3 to 6 months; some continue for as long as a year. Families Together program assistants provide transportation. Guided by one of the family therapists, families engage in healthy play activities and communication necessary for successful reunification. Visiting in this environment gives parents hands-on experience and immediate feedback as they master parenting skills.

The Family Visitation Center provides supervised visitations and exchanges, in addition to support services such as parenting classes. Visitation services are based on a court order as well as the Family Visitation Center'sassessment of the level of care needed for each family. The different levels of care are regular supervised visitation, supportive supervised visitation, intermittent supervised visitation, therapeutic supervised visitation, and off-site visitation. Trained staff is present to monitor all interaction between the children and the non-custodial parent(s) and to provide feedback to the parents. Staff also record all parent-child interactions and report back to the Court per court order. To ensure safety of the clients and staff, the Family Visitation Center is set up with separate parking facilities, entrances, waiting rooms and staggered arrival and departure times for the custodial and non-custodial parties so the parties never see each other before, during, or after the visit exchange.

Family Visitation Services is a program run by Visinet, Inc. that provides a safe way for children and parents to have court order supervised visits. Supervised Visitation Specialists, hired by the program, observe and report the interaction between children and the adult they are visiting (i.e., their parents/caretakers/ grandparents, etc.) to the Nebraska Health and Human Services (NHHS)—Protection and Safety/Integrated Care Coordination Unit (ICCU) case manager. All relevant interaction that takes place between family members is documented and reported. Supervised Visitation Specialists will not provide educational assistance during these sessions, unless there is an identifiable safety concern. Supervised Visitation Specialists will complete two full sessions to observe and document the interventions that are necessary for the family to function, and will not terminate a visit unless a child’s safety is at risk. A service assessment will be completed after the two sessions to determine the most appropriate service for the family. If the agency determines that family support is necessary, the program coordinator will contact the case manager and request family support referral and authorization.

STATE AND COUNTY POLICIES

Indiana Child Welfare Policy Manual. (2008). Developing the Visitation Plan.

Child Protection Best Practices Bulletin. Parent-Child Visitation.
Provides information on current and best practices in parent-child visitation.

National Resource Center for Permanency and Family Connections. (2003). Visiting Between Children in Care and Their Families: A Look at Current Policy
Reviews the foster care visitation policies of 37 States and summarizes the States' treatment of written visitation plans, participants in visits, frequency and location of visits, responsibilities and supervision, right of contact, and visiting activities.

National Resource Center for Permanency & Family Connections. (2008).  Programs that Provide Services to Support Family Visiting of Children in Foster Care.
A database of agencies and programs providing services that help children in foster care visit with their families. The database (1) supports child welfare agency staff in the identification of visiting programs that might be resources for children in care and their families, and (2) assists agencies and professionals that are interested in developing visiting services in identifying and contacting programs that provide the types of services they wish to develop, thereby supporting the further development of such services.

Pennsylvania Child Welfare Training Program.  Family Reunification Through Visitation.
Examines knowledge related to the development of successful visitation plans and describes strategies to enhance caregiver involvement in the visitation process so that families in Pennsylvania may have better opportunities to achieve reunification.

The University of Illinois Children and Family Research Center.  (2001)
. Making Visits Better: The Perspectives of Parents, Foster Parents, and Child Welfare Workers
Provides the results of interviews with mothers of children recently placed in foster care, foster mothers, and child welfare workers about the challenges of parent visitation with young children.  Provides implications of understanding mothers', foster mothers' and child welfare workers' perspectives for enhancing the quality of visits with young children.