Creating Positive Relationships: How Parents, Foster Parents, and Agencies Support Family Time During the COVID-19 Pandemic (1.5 Hours)

How parents, foster parents, and agencies can support family time during the COVID-19 pandemic.

When children and parents are separated by child protective services, efforts for reunification are mandated by law and supported by casework practice. Child welfare literature, dating back decades, documents that what historically has been known as “visitation” is the best predictor of reunification.

More recently, visitation has become known as “family time.” Relationships between and among parents, foster parents, and casework staff must be positive and affirming. Now, however, “social distancing” because of the COVID-19 pandemic is having a complex and perplexing impact on family time.