Models for Reunification of Families in Foster Care: A Systematic Review

Background and Purpose: The implementation of the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997 brought increased attention to the importance of helping children and families involved with the child welfare system achieve permanency. According to the national Adoption and Foster Care Reporting System, there were over 200,000 children who entered out of home care in 2014 alone. Of the families involved in the child welfare system, over half are working towards reunification. Although prior research has mainly focused on programs that aim to improve placement stability for foster children or evaluate the effectiveness of therapeutic programs for children with difficult to manage behaviors, there has been little research focusing on the effectiveness of programs design to facilitate reunification of families. Using systematic review procedures, this study investigated models used for the reunification of families involved in the child welfare system.

Methods: This systematic review included a comprehensive search of three academic databases, forward searches, reference mining, grey literature searches, and hand searching of two selected journals. Studies of families involved in the child welfare system, who had also had their child(ren) placed in out of home care and were working towards being reunified were included in this review. Studies that were included had to have used a model or program that supported the reunification of families and included a treatment and control group. Both authors conducted this systematic review simultaneously in order to enhance reliability.

Results: Initial systematic search results produced a total of 86 unduplicated publications. After applying inclusion/exclusion criteria, the final sample consisted of eight studies. A data extraction form specifically designed for this study aided the authors in extracting sample characteristics, outcome measurements, information regarding the model used, the statistical approach applied in the study as well as information regarding the validity and reliability of the study. Inconsistent results were found across the studies. Some studies reported significant effects on reducing time to reunification for the treatment group while others found either no significant effect between groups or effects that suggest more positive results for the control group. Additionally, across the studies there was little consistency in which influencing factors were chosen for inclusion.

Conclusion: Hundreds of thousands of children are involved with the child welfare system on any given year. Of these children, approximately half are working towards reunification together with their families. The Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997 brought renewed attention to the need for timely permanency for these children and their families. Prior research has focused mainly on efforts to improve placement stability or on therapeutic treatment outcomes for children, child research on programs supporting the reunification of families has been scarce. The identification of models or programs being used throughout the country to effectively reunify families is needed. Additionally, research on these models is needed in order to continue to support the reunification efforts of children and their families.