June is Family Reunification Month and here at the Family Room, we are taking a moment to reflect on our mission to increase the likelihood of family reunification. There is often a focus on the final reunification of families at the end of their journey, and rightfully so, that is why the Family Room exists, however I want to draw our attention to the reunification that is ongoing throughout a families’ journey.
Each time a child and their birth parent spend time together, that is also reunification. Each hour they are able to spend together is reunification. It’s a family coming back together and it is vitally important, not only for the long-term outcome, but also for the short-term wellbeing of all involved. A Strong Families article titled “How Can Frequent, Quality Time Promote Relationships and Permanency” by Casey Family Programs (May 2020) outlines several positive impacts on children and parents when they reunite frequently and for longer periods of time.
Benefits for Children
- Supports parent-child attachment
- Eases the pain of separation for all
- Maintains and strengthens family relationships
- Reassures children that their parent(s) is/are ok and helps them to eliminate self-blame
- Supports the family in dealing with changing relationships
- Supports a child’s adjustment to the foster home
- Results in shorter periods of time in foster care
Benefits for Birth Parents
- Enhances parent motivation to change by providing reassurance that the parent-child relationship is important for a child’s well-being
- Provides opportunities for parent(s) to learn and try new skills
- Enables the parent(s) to be active and current with the child’s development, educational and medical needs, and community activities
- Provides opportunities for parent(s) to assess how the child is doing, and share information about how to meet the child’s needs
- Assists in the assessment and decision-making process regarding parenting capacities and permanency goals
To date, The Family Room has facilitated over 40,000 hours of face-to-face family time and has an 82% reunification rate upon service completion. In addition, The Family Room has served over 220 families and more than 370 children. “More than any other intervention, it is the quality and quantity of family time that is the best predictor for whether or not a child can safely reunite with his/her birth parents (Simms and Bolden, 1991).
We invite you to think of the ways that your family spends time together? It might be connecting each night at the dinner table, playing a board game, building legos, reading a story before bed. All these seemingly small things have a massive cumulative effect. The same is true for families at The Family Room.
Jennifer Browning, Executive Director
Recent Comments