Did you know June is National Reunification Month? This month is a time to recognize families who reunify after being involved with child welfare – and the people and effort it takes to help families stay together.
Watch the YouTube video above to see our virtual panel discussion about reunification. Our marketing and communications specialist Denise Douglas interviewed the following Choices experts:
- Stephen Groce, Mental Health Therapist
- Jennifer Tackitt-Dorfmeyer, Executive Director
- Antwan Butler, Trainer and Consultant
The full video transcript has been lightly edited and is available below.
Denise: Hello, I’m Denise Douglas. I’m a marketing and communications specialist at Choices Coordinated Care Solutions, and I’m here with a panel today to talk about reunification. This month is National Reunification Month, and we’ve pulled together experts to talk about what that is and what it means for families. Before we get started, I’d like to introduce the panel. We have Stephen Groce, Jennifer Tackitt-Dorfmeyer, and Antwan Butler. If each of you could introduce yourself, that’d be great.
Stephen: Morning, I’m Stephen Groce. I am a mental health therapist with Choices Behavioral Health Solutions. I’ve been with Choices for about 10 years and happy to be a member of this panel this morning.
Jennifer: Hi, my name is Jennifer Tackitt-Dorfmeyer, and I’m the executive director for Choices. I have some history in child welfare and have worked with reunification for a long time.
Antwan: I’m Antwan Butler. I’m a licensed mental health professional, trainer, and consultant with Choices in Region 8 in Shreveport, Louisiana. Former foster care worker and also a former foster child.
Denise: Alright, thank you so much, and let’s get started with you, Jennifer. We say “reunification,” but what does that really mean? What is reunification?
Jennifer: Reunification is a goal and also a process. It means to safely restore. What that means for families that have kids in foster care is that we are looking at what the circumstances were that required kids to be removed and placed in foster care, and what activities or underlying needs can we identify to reach the goal of reunification, which means to put these youth back with their families? It’s important to celebrate reunification. I think studies have shown – evidence has shown – that reunification for youth is really the best thing. That our youth thrive in their families of origin, and it’s an enormous amount of work and change that families do to achieve reunification. So, it should be celebrated. Anytime somebody creates such a huge change in their life and does something positive, I think it’s important to celebrate.
Denise: With that said, I know that there’s a lot of stigma associated with families involved in child welfare. Antwan, can you talk about that a little bit more?
Antwan: Yeah, I think the tendency is to look at biological parents through a different lens and have the perspective that they don’t deal with some of the same issues and concerns as the general population… like substance abuse issues, trauma, and things like that. Those things are generalized to the public, and it’s not just to biological parents who have kids in care. And I think another thing is that there is an assumption that those parents don’t love their children, when the truth is a lot of those parents are usually victims themselves of trauma and other circumstances in their lives. I think there are a lot of misconceptions and preconceptions about these biological parents that aren’t necessarily true.
Denise: Oftentimes, we talk about the system that’s involved in all this. Stephen, can you explain what that system is, and what their role is?
Stephen: Sure. The system is really made up of a lot of community partners, a lot of stakeholders who are involved. So, a lot of times we may think of just DCS (Department of Child Services) or just the courts. And, really, the system is made up of DCS, the courts, the guardian ad litem or CASA’s office, and a host of different community providers, which could be therapists, behavior management specialists, case managers, mentors, so forth and so on.
Denise: Antwan, I know you have a lot of experience with the foster system and things like that. Can you talk about what the impact of reunification is on a child?
Antwan: Yeah, absolutely. I think there are some negatives and positives about the situation. First of all, we just know that children do better when they’re raised in a stable family setting all around, loving adults and their biological parents and extended family that can support their growth. I think sometimes, there can be I guess negatives to that situation, when kids are being reunified. Sometimes, kids feel guilty about living in a foster home – that they may let the parents down. Parents may have a little anxiety around kids being back in the home and feel like their previous problems may still be a concern, just the stresses of having kids back that you haven’t had in your house for a long time. So, I think those are things that we definitely have to consider. But I think when we have the right support in place, and we really have a strengths-based approach for working with parents, getting those kids back at home, those things that we should really look forward to. And I think on there’s a greater emphasis that needs to be placed on reunification just like we would adoption, and really have case plans that are catered to making sure that reunification happens.
Denise: I know Stephen touched on this, but Antwan, can you talk a little bit more maintaining connections with family?
Antwan: Yeah, I mean, family is everything. Most of the time and really depending on the age of that kid, the only social ties that those kids have is, you know, grandma, aunt, uncle, so losing those connections can really have a negative impact on that kid. So, maintaining those relationships and that type of environment as much as we can, whether that’s through supervised visitation, whether that’s through kinship care, is of utmost importance. I often explain to foster parents, sometimes, trying to give them an example of what they may look like. A kid being placed out of their home is like pulling a tree, you know, out of the ground. Everything that was feeding that tree and that was nutritious to that tree is now disconnected. So, I think keeping those contacts, with families, with relatives that are close to that kid, makes the transition smoother back into a family’s home.
Denise: I’m going to open this one up to anyone that wants to answer. How can foster parents support reunification?
Jennifer: As a foster parent myself, I see myself as an opportunity to work to restore an entire family, not just take care of a child. I’m an important piece of the puzzle, making sure that I share information, understand family dynamics, support that family while they move through whatever challenges they may have. It’s an opportunity to really become closer to folks that you don’t know and reduce the amount of fear that you may have about people. Really, the stigma is odd because those are afflictions that all of us tend to have. They just have been involved in child welfare system. So really just getting to know people as people, understanding their stories, understanding their strengths, their resilience, and their opportunity for change. You can really become a mentor and a guiding piece in that family’s puzzle.
Denise: That’s a great way to look at it. What kind of engagement do families have when they’re apart?
Jennifer: Well, parenting time is essential for any family, whether that be families that are divorced, whether it’s in foster care, but parenting time and parental rights maintain consistent contact. So, the courts and the Department of Child Services tend to set a schedule in the beginning that considers what the family’s challenges are as well as what the youth needs are. So, they set together parenting time from the very beginning so consistent contact with their parents along with any family or kinship person that may be important is vital to the success of that family and the goal of reunification.
Denise: We talked earlier about how foster parents can support reunification. Could one of you talk about how social services professionals can also support reunification?
Stephen: Well, I think it’s important for social services professionals to help support because we’re all a part of that team. And so, as we’re working with foster parents, as we’re working with the biological family or kinship families, we’re working with the court and part of that conjunction. A lot of it should be that we’re helping to support whatever that family need is. So, it’s helping to support and accommodate for visitation times, working around folks’ schedules, also lessening the stigma of that and being less fearful about that. So, as I mentioned before, sometimes families have the unfortunate circumstances of having substance use issues or, you know, a host of other things. And so, we don’t want to be fearful of that, of those processes. We’re trying to help folks get to a point of being able to feel good about themselves to being able to manage and visit with their kids safely. And we want to be supportive of that and use those opportunities and moments to coach people and share strategies and tips and things like that so as not to be a hindrance to the process but to actually support that family’s reunification goal.
Denise: Can you talk a little bit about resources in the community that can help families?
Stephen: Sure. As one of my roles, it’s just recognizing there’s a host of resources and those resources may be your traditional resources in terms of community mental health centers, after-school programs that schools may offer, neighborhood community centers. But there can also be non-traditional or less formal supports in terms of the religious community oftentimes can be very supportive to a family. There are food banks, there’s all kind of drives. Sometimes, mentors and other agencies are doing different things. Now, a lot of times, it’s just a matter of – I always say – closed mouths don’t get fed. If you tell someone what it is that you need, oftentimes folks will have a connection to that. So, it could be our mental health centers are oftentimes great partners the schools are oftentimes great partners and they have access to other resources that are out there, whether it be a transportation, whether it be job resources. The Department of Workforce Development can be a huge resource as a family is trying to get on their feet and get some stable employment. They have processes; they have programs in place. So, really, resources can come from any place that we know in our community, any place that’s a part of the community and just accessing that and seeing what they may be able to offer and just kind of getting that ball rolling. And a lot of times, that leads to other help from other areas ends.
Denise: Antwan, could you talk about how the social services professionals ensure that a family is ready to reunify?
Antwan: Yeah and I think the vehicle for making sure that that’s done is through the case plan that the parents are working. And I think one of the important things to consider is that we’re looking at the difference between safety and compliance. I know sometimes there’s a bunch of things for parents to do, and it can become more of a sterile check-off list, really, as opposed to an individualized plan where we’re looking at the individual needs of the family and the parents. So, definitely want to make sure that we’re looking at the difference between those two. And of course, there’s mandatory things that that we need to address according to why the kid came into care. So, we may have to monitor a parent’s form of substance abuse. There’s all types of screens and services that we can put in place to make sure that we’re giving that biological parent an opportunity to thrive. I think even in the process of reunification, even looking at counseling and supportive services. There are all types of models out there I think that are beneficial for parents, in particular, that are involved with foster care and kids who are in foster care. There’s parent-child interaction therapy, which focuses a lot on relationship enhancement between the kid and their mom or their dad. Also, there’s TBRI, Trust-Based Relational Intervention. Making sure that the foster care worker is, and I mentioned this earlier, is maintaining a strengths-based approach even in those visitations and making sure to be a regular and frequent. Also, looking at those underlying needs throughout the duration of the case plan, making sure that those items that they have on the case plan are really individualized to the needs of that family as well as along the way monitoring safety, whether that situation is improving or whether it’s getting worse. Then also there’s you know just making sure that all the policies and standards that we put in place are really family-friendly and that we’ve done everything that we can to help those parents have a successful case plan. Then there’s also a model called the family group decision-making model, where it’s more of a team-based approach. I think Stephen mentioned that earlier. But it’s really, really valuing the input of the biological parents and making sure that their voice is heard.
Jennifer: Just to add to that, I think what Choices has done through the years is really refine a team-based process through Wraparound. And although I think at times it may be scary to reunify families because they’re concerned about future risk, that’s what the Child and Family Team is also there for. So, there are professionals, natural supports, and people that can help families set goals and determine readiness as they move forward. And when it works really well, that Child and Family Team stays in place once all of the professionals have closed. And they’re able to have a village around their youth and family to make sure that safety, change, and support is always readily available.
Denise: Could you talk about that a little bit more – the support after reunification, for a family?
Jennifer: Sure. When the Child and Family Team Meeting is built in the very beginning, it should include natural supports or those non-paid supports that families can access when all professionals are gone. So, an example might be a community mental health center. It might be an aunt, an uncle, a friend; those people that are there when the professionals back away or when the Department of Child Services stops paying for services. So, when that’s built, and they’re included from the very beginning, a plan is set in place through the team with goals being set that a professional can reduce hours or change has occurred, so then those families can pick up where the professionals left off and support one another in a way that families may not have had support prior to. So, being guided by parents, being guided by families. What is it that you need? And it’s an opportunity to organize those thoughts of need and support so that when they are left without professional supports they can continue to maintain the progress that they started.
Denise: Thank you so much, Jennifer. One for the group: I know older youth are kind of in a special spot when it comes to this. Can one of you talk about older youth and things that are particular to their situation?
Stephen: Yeah, I think older youth are, like you said, in a peculiar situation. A lot of times, like I said earlier, reunification is oftentimes the goal and keeping that connection with family as much as possible. And a lot of times, the word family can be fluid. So, it could be, you know, who that child and who that family identifies themselves as family members. That can include friends of the family, that might include a neighbor who’s been around for 14 of the child’s 15 years. And so, you know, that may be who that child considers family. So, with older youth, a lot of times they may be in situations where they’re aging out or they’re coming to it an age where maybe reunification isn’t going to be possible from the system’s perspective, or maybe too much time has lapsed, or there are too many unfortunate circumstances. But the system still wants to be able to support that child in any way, shape, or form. So, that can be making sure they have the independent skills necessary to be able to get and manage their own apartment, maybe to get into school whether it’s a trade school or college, or helping them to get a job and to be able to maintain their own living environment. So, maybe helping them get a car, helping them to be able to manage their own budget, and making sure they have a bank account set up, and so forth and so on. And so, the system is still there, and those teams that are that have been in place are still there to support those older you even though they may be what we call aging out of the system. But we still want to make sure that they’re set up for success that they have access to all of those community resources mentioned before, that they have a good healthy connection even still with their family, even though the plan may not be reunification. But we still want to make sure they’re connected to their family as much as possible, they’re connected to their communities as much as possible, they have access to as many resources as possible, and those partners, as Jennifer was saying. As we start to transition towards case closure, we want to make sure that that support is sustainable. So, whether that’s those paid professionals maintaining some kind of connection, helping to transition their connection to other community-based resources, and making sure they’re still connected with their families is hugely important.
Jennifer: Just to add to that, I think that older youth are in a position that they could use guidance or when we think about services as they move back to their families, how do we help them navigate their family system? How do we help them navigate the community in which they are going to become adults in? So, the problems that plague all of us as a population don’t go away. So, our youth need to understand how to navigate addiction, how to navigate job loss, how to navigate certain things that our community throws as barriers in our way. So, when we look at reunification with families, we just need to remember to pay special attention to the needs of older youth to help build capacity to become adults that can work in this world.
Antwan: And I think that older youth, most of the time, they’ve been in the system for a while and they’ve actually had an opportunity to see how things go and have learned, have developed a little bit of self-awareness, and really become experts on what they need. So, one of the things that we practice is family voice and choice, and I think we really need to pay particular attention to what they’re voicing about their own needs, concerns, and really cater our support around hearing what they have to say about themselves and how they see themselves in the future.
Denise: Okay, and before we close any final messages just about reunification and celebrating it this month?
Jennifer: I just want to say again how important it is to highlight these successes, to celebrate as we move along with families. This is no small feat – to allow people into your home, to become vulnerable to people you may not even know, just strangers. So, when this works and works well, it is an amazing accomplishment for families and something that absolutely we should be celebrating.
Denise: Well, thank you so much Jennifer, Stephen, and Antwan. I really appreciate your time, and thanks for your providing all this insight on reunification. And take care!
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