Risks of Reunification

In many schools of science, there is an obvious "pendulum swing" from one extreme to another. Regarding foster care, despite the change in focus between 1980 and 1997, the focus on "family preservation" is still dominent -- despite the risks of reunification and frequency of reentry into the foster care system.

The Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act of 1980 required states to make reasonable efforts to keep children in the home. If the child must be removed, this law also prioritized returning foster children to their family of origin if at all possible. The assumption was that it would harm a child developmentally if that child lacked contact with his or her biological family.

The Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997 addressed many of the risks and concerns about reunification efforts, such as:

-How long should a child remain in limbo before finally getting a stable, permanent placement?
-If the parent continues to abuse substances and/or children, why not just terminate custody?

Section 101 of 1997 Act states that: "Efforts to preserve and reunify the family shall not include certain parents if they pose a serious risk to the child's health and safety."

Despite the change in focus between those two Acts, American legal and social services continue to uphold the value of preserving and reunifying families whenever possible.

Reunification is not a panacea to the foster care problem.
Just as removing a child from the home can create trauma and emotional disturbance, so too can returning the child to their biological family. Studies indicate that foster children who have been reunified with their biological parents often regress in terms of behavioral functioning.

After being reunified, foster children are at-risk for:
-Higher levels of family dysfunction
-Significantly greater behavior problems than foster youth who are not reunified
-Exposure to violence, poor family functioning and lower levels of social support
-Decrease in monitoring children after they exited foster care
-Less likely to receive mental health services
-Higher risk of re-entry to foster care system
-Greater number of foster placements and placement changes than foster youth who are not reunified

Quote: "Reunification prior to age 4 is associated with children being exposed to more adverse life events by age 6, including exposure to elevated family dysfunction, instability and harm" (Lau).

Sources:
Berliner, L. Is family preservation in the best interest of children? Journal of Interpersonal Violence 8, (1993): p556(2)

Gelles, R. Family reunification/family preservation: Are children really being protected? Journal of Interpersonal Violence, (1993): p557(5)

Lau, A., et all. Going home: the complex effects of reunification on internalizing problems among children in foster care. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology 31.4 (Aug. 2003): p345 (14)