Visit Basics for Caseworkers and Counselors
This list was created by Tanya Krupat, former director of Visiting Services at ACS.
Urgency
Visits should be discussed right away and arranged as soon after removal as possible and safe.
The specifics will always depend on the nature of the case, but attention to visiting—ensuring the children and parents see one another—should always be paid at this early stage of a case.
Parental Involvement
Visiting is not a “normal” event for families. Explain to parents what visits are, what the purpose is, how they will happen, and how they may evolve over time. It is important to convey how important visiting is for children’s well-being as well as for reunification.
Discuss the visiting arrangement with the parent(s). While you cannot promise that their preferred arrangement can happen, it is important to convey respect for their role as parents, and to involve them in the planning process, offering choices/ options whenever possible.
Attention should also be paid to culture, language, religion, developmental level, and other factors, including domestic violence and mental health issues.
Discussing and facilitating visits early on can also be an effective parent engagement strategy—you can begin to build a positive, constructive relationship with parents by demonstrating your commitment to making sure they see and stay connected to their children.
Visiting Plan
A visiting plan should outline the who, what, where, when, how long, and other details about how the parent and child(ren) will spend time together while the child(ren) is in foster care.
In most cases, visits should be at least weekly for 2 hours. For infants, visits should be more than weekly (even if for shorter periods of time).
A visit plan progressing towards reunification should allow the family to spend increasing amounts of time together with lower levels of supervision. Visits should progress from weekly visits to day visits to overnight visits, weekend visits, trial and then final discharge.
While there is no set progression for every family (every family is unique), placing increasing responsibility on the parent by changing the visiting arrangement will also help reveal when reunification is not the appropriate goal, and another permanency option may need to be pursued.
Visit Supervision and Location
Most cases start out with supervised visits—if you are supervising a visit, your role is to observe but also to make the family feel comfortable in an uncomfortable, unnatural situation. Think of yourself as providing support, participating when helpful, and modeling positive interactions and activities as necessary and appropriate.
“Surveillance” or note-taking in the corner are not effective ways to supervise visits. This will not help families heal, will not help parents develop improved parenting techniques, and will not yield an accurate “read” of the family’s interaction.
Visits should be at the LOWEST level of supervision which still guarantees the child’s safety. As you feel more comfortable with the family and the child’s safety, visits should move to lower levels of supervision including monitoring and then unsupervised visits.
The visit should move outside the agency as quickly as possible, even when they are still supervised. Consider having visits in the park, public library, community center, relative’s home, parent’s home, foster parent’s home. Parents and older children should be consulted as to where they would like their visits to take place.
The reasons behind the chosen level of supervision should be clear to all involved (including the parent), and documented in the case record.
Concrete visiting feedback to parents – including strengths and areas to be strengthened– is also very important. Parents should not feel that visiting is a mystery or a trick, with observations being used against them. Feedback can also help parents grow and improve the interaction between them and their children.
The level of supervision (and the visit plan itself) should be re-assessed at least every 3 months, and discussed at every Service Plan Review and permanency hearing.
Interpreting Visiting Behavior and Responses
Visiting can be painful and difficult—every visit involves a re-attaching and then a separation. We should not expect every visit to be “happy” not interpret sadness, anger, awkwardness, or “acting out” as unusual.
Interpreting children’s (and parent’s) responses to visits requires very careful assessment and unless the child’s safety and well-being are clearly compromised, suspending visits should not be the automatic response to a child’s apparent negative or regressive reactions to a visit. Supervisors and expert professionals should be consulted if limiting or suspending visits is considered.
Preparation for and debriefing after visits is critical for children and parents, and can greatly improve the quality of the visits as well as children’s behaviors afterwards.
Foster parents should be supported and helped to understand and deal with children’s post-visit behaviors. They can help children by providing connections to the parent (such as a photo), not speaking badly about the parent, and asking the child how he/ she feels.
If the child’s behaviors or visit-response do raise well-being or safety concerns, these should be addressed immediately. If the visits do need to be suspended or stopped, consult your Supervisor right away.
Stay Goal Oriented
While regular and consistent visiting is very important, remember that permanency is the goal. Continually ask yourself, “Are the visits set up to move this family towards reunification?” or to reveal that this is not a realistic or appropriate goal. While having “good visits” is important, the goal is to have visits that lead to permanency.
