Achieving Successful Returns from Care?: What Makes Reunifications Work? - Softcover

Reunification has been little studied in the UK but given its place in care planning for looked after children, it certainly deserves greater attention. How can the level of successful returns be increased? What supports are crucial to success? And in what circumstances is return home contra-indicated? There is a real need for up-to-date information to enable local authorities to make informed decisions about when to return children to their parents, and what kinds of services and case management will increase the chances of success. This important and timely study focuses on 180 children, aged 0-14, who were all returned home from care in six local authorities in England. The study aims to: Examine the patterns and outcomes of return home through a two-year follow-up of the sample; Investigate which factors are associated with successful and unsuccessful returns; Explore through in-depth interviews with children and parents their own experiences of successful and unsuccessful returns, including repeated failed reunification. The findings suggest that appropriate assessment, preparation and service are linked to returns succeeding. Lack of appropriate intervention, on the other hand, has far-reaching consequences for children s future well-being and stability. What is needed, the study argues, is a refocus of attention onto reunification in order to improve children s outcomes.

Elaine Farmer is Professor of Child and Family Studies in the School for Policy Studies at the University of Bristol. Wendy Sturgess was a Research Associate in the School for Policy Studies and Teresa O Neill was the Director of the Post-Qualifying Award in Specialist Social Work with Children and Young People, both at the University of Bristol. Dinithi Wijedasa is a Research Associate at the Hadley Centre for Adoption and Foster Care Studies at the University of Bristol.