Parental Visiting and Placement Permanency: Sacred Cows in Foster Care Policy?

Jim Barber
Flinders University
GPO Box 2100
Adealide S.A. 5001
Australia
+61 8 8201 3013
FAX: +61 8 8201 3760
jim.barber@flinders.edu.au
Purpose: Two of the most widely accepted propositions in contemporary child welfare are that, wherever possible, both parental contact and placement stability should be promoted in out-of-home care. However, both propositions rest on very flimsy evidence. The research reported in this paper set out to examine the association between parental visiting and reunification and between placement stability and foster child well-being.
 
Methods: The placement details and psychosocial well-being of 235 children entering foster care were monitored at baseline (T1) and again 4-months (T2) and 8-months (T3) later. Placement movements were obtained from casenotes, while well-being measures and family contact details were obtained from structured interviews with the children's primary social worker.
 
Results: Consistent with previous research, the absolute frequency of parental contact was positively associated with reunification and negatively with the amount of time in care. However, changes in the frequency of family contact did not appear to influence the nature of the relationship between children and their parents, nor the likelihood of reunification. Fewer than 25% of social workers assigned to the children believed that contact was very beneficial for children, and almost 20% observed deteriorations in family relationships for cases involving family contact. In relation to placement stability, it was found that children whose placements remained stable throughout the 8-month period and children whose placements remained unstable throughout the period displayed a similar quadratic trend towards psychosocial improvement. However, children who initially experienced a period of placement instability (i.e. multiple placements) followed by stability displayed improvement!
only while their placements were unstable.
 
Implications: The data caution against dogmatic adherence to the dual policies of parental contact and placement permanency in out-of-home care.