Is all contact between children in care and their birth parents good contact

1
Is all contact between children in care and
their birth parents good contact? Stephanie
Taplin PhD NSW Centre for Parenting
Research 2006 ACWA Conference 15 August 2006
2
History of contact in foster care

• Recent history of contact in OOHC
• Developed out of open adoption literature
• Influences of family law
• s. 86 Children and Young Persons (Care and
  Protection) Act 1998 commenced in 2000

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Impacts of new legislation

• Increased time and resources on contact
  arrangements
• Children may be having more contact than
  previously
• In NSW around 4,000 children enter care p.a. and
  over 10,000 are in care

4
Debates between legal and welfare professions

• Decisions and interpretations affected by
• personal and family experiences,
• socio-cultural backgrounds,
• their role and responsibilities,
• agency task,
• professional training and experience,
• perceived power and authority.
• Harris Lindsay 2002

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How good is the evidence for contact in OOHC?

• Much of the evidence comes from family law and
  adoption literature
• Much of the research on foster care has
  methodological flaws e.g. small, unrepresentative
  samples
• Few sound, large-scale studies on effects of
  contact in long-term care

6
For contact to be beneficial, per se, a causal
relationship needs to be proven that increased
contact leads to improved outcomes, not just that
contact is associated or correlated with improved
outcomes.
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Benefits of contact

• Prevents idealisation of the birth parents
  opportunities to discuss why cannot live together
• Maintains cultural identity, origins
• Those visited more often are better adjusted
  psychologically but is it the contact?
• Some evidence that contact increases stability in
  adoption but applicable to foster care?

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Other benefits.. Contact encourages
reunification?

• Children who have greater amounts of contact are
  more likely to return home
• But no evidence that the contact visits alone
  explain this
• Confounding variables may explain, such as
  child-birth parent relationship, a lack of child
  behavioural problems, or promotion of contact by
  the worker.

9
Contact encourages/maintains attachment to birth
parents?

• Research on the attachment behaviour of children
  in foster care is limited and needs to be
  bolstered to provide a clearer understanding of
  how maltreatment, separation from parents, and
  placement in foster care influence attachment,
  and how foster childrens attachments affect
  their long-term adjustment.
• Mennen OKeefe 2005

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Reasons for no/restricted contact threat of
harm/abuse

• Where strong evidence that child had been abused
  prior to placement, prohibitions on contact found
  to be associated with better outcomes
• Previously abused children with no restrictions
  were more likely to be re-abused either during
  contact or after return home
• Sinclair, Gibbs Wilson 2004 Sinclair et al
  2004

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Other reasons why contact not beneficial
disruptions

• Violence and drunkenness/ intoxication by birth
  parents
• Serious mental health issues
• Common problems unreliability of parents,
  rejection by parents, parents trying to undermine
  the carer or setting the child against the carers
• Farmer et al 2004 Sinclair, Gibbs Wilson 2004
  Sinclair et al 2004 2005

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Additional effects on the child

• The impact on children of being rejected by their
  parents undermines the childs sense that their
  new family can keep them safe and secure the
  childs emotional distress from contact may have
  a knock-on effect of undermining the new parents
  psychological equilibrium.
• Neil Howe 2004

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Foster carers views

• Many dissatisfied with contact arrangements
• Behaviour problems after contact visits
• Increased strain from contact visits

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Conclusions re contact in long-term care

• No conclusive evidence that contact, in itself,
  promotes reunification or attachment
• Not enough is known about the effects of contact
  to be able to generalise about its long-term
  impacts
• Arguments often been driven by ideology not
  science
• Do no harm

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Implications for practice

• Recommendations must be case-specific
• Good-quality assessments are needed
• Principle that contact facilitates childs
  developmental needs, promotes stability and
  security
• Most issues to consider are inter-related and
  dynamic

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Is the goal restoration?

• When the goal of intervention is returning the
  child to the birth parents, then frequent visits
  should be encouraged (Mennen OKeefe 2005
  Leathers 2003)
• Assessments of parenting capacity, risks
• Early decisions about restoration

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Other issues to consider

• How strong is the attachment/ relationship
  between children and their birth parents?
• Are there risks to the safety of the child?
• Are childrens wishes for and reactions to
  contact being taken into account?

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What else?

• Age and developmental stage of child
• How supportive are foster carers?
• Any changes in relationships and situations?
• Significant travelling and disruption
• Reaction of birth parents
• Contact with other family members
• Indirect contact may be sufficient

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Conclusions

• Decisions about contact should be made on a
  case-by-case basis and reflect the unique
  characteristics of the child and their overall
  circumstances.

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• Full report available at
• www.community.nsw.gov.au/documents/research_good_c
  ontact.pdf
• DoCS Research site
• www.community.nsw.gov.au/html/news_
• publications/research.htm