Promoting Contact for Children in State Care: Learning from Northern Ireland on the Development of a Framework for Assessing Contact

ABSTRACT

While the principle of contact between children in care and their families is enshrined in law, the precise form and frequency is at the discretion of social workers and the courts. Professionals must seek to balance the twin principles of children’s need for protection from the psychological, emotional and physical harm that may arise from having contact with parents and other family members, with the need of family members and children to have their relationships and identity promoted. Courts require clear, structured and unambiguous information about the needs of children and their parents in order to make decisions which will have potentially life-changing implications for families. In this article we explore one approach to supporting the decision making of legal and social work professionals in relation to the frequency and form of contact by reflecting upon the development by the first author of an approach to assessing the quality and benefits of contact for children in State care in Northern Ireland. We discuss the key principles that should inform decisions and good practice through reflecting on the learning gained from developing and implementing such a structured approach. We conclude that practice has been informed by promoting legal rights without sufficient consideration of the relational aspects of making contact work for each of the involved parties.

KEYWORDS:

• Children in care
• contact
• courts
• attachment
• parenting

Acknowledgements

Many thanks to the members of the 2011 working group for their valuable input into the revising and implementation of the guidance and supporting assessment tools presented in this paper. (Her Honour Judge Loughran, Marian Hall, Jackie McGarvey and Ann Miller).

Special thanks go to all of the social workers in the South Eastern Trust, and in particular the Permanence Team, who used the assessment proformas to assess contact and provide helpful feedback over a number of years, between 2004 and 2011. Also, thank you to Morag McClurg for helping to update the assessment tools during that period.

Thank you to Peter Reynolds, Teresa Fallon, Deirdre Allen and Patricia Owens from Nigala, for their support and helpful feedback on the draft paper.

Finally, very special thanks goes to Dr John Devaney who provided the support, encouragement, knowledge and guidance needed to get this paper finally written.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.