CONTACT & SUPERVISING CONTACT
This course in normally one day. It is about the contact children in the public care have with their parents and significant others. The course is intended for supervising contact officers, social workers, foster carers, Children Centre / Contact Centre staff and others that may be involved in contact issues.
Learning Objectives:
 |
Historical overview |
|
The Legal aspects of contact |
|
Why contact? |
|
Models of observation |
|
The child's needs |
|
Risk in contact (to the child and others) |
|
Contact as intervention |
|
Supervising contact |
THE ISSUE OF CONTACT
Contact was established as the “key to discharge” from care by Fanshel and Shinn in their major 1978 longitudinal study in the USA. They found that:
| 86% of parents in regular contact had children rehabilitated whereas only 41% of parents in irregular contact did so. |
| Children in regular contact scored higher on IQ, emotional stability and positive assessment by teachers. |
These findings were echoed in the 1989 UK study by John Tresiliotis who found that:
| Children who experience consistent and stable contact with the parents tend to have more stable and settled foster placements |
| Children who are visited regularly by their parents tend to go home sooner. |
The Dartington Research Unit reported in 1989 that 90% of children looked after by local authorities end up back in contact with their families of origin at some stage in their lives. Research by Howe and Feast (2000) show that post adoptive adults frequently want to know the details of their lineage and want to meet their natural parents. This has become an increasing feature of modern thinking about permanence planning and continuing contact in some form or another. This view has been given added weight by the Maori culture in New Zealand and the public outcry raised by adult “missing children” who were separated from their parents and shipped to Australia and New Zealand during the early and middle 20th century often without their possessing any documentation about their natural parents.
BRIEF HISTORY OF CONTACT
The theme of
contact tends to come and go in fads. Prior to 1945, Poor Law Guardian Boards
were able to sever contact in cases of “unfit parenting”.
The basic concept of child welfare was separation from parents "unfit"
to care for children. Most of these children were not adopted but kept in long
term fostering. Some of those that were adopted became known as the “missing
children” having no knowledge or understanding of their natural parentage. The
death in 1945 of Dennis O’Neill (a fostered child) caused an outcry and led to
changes.
The Children Act of 1948 placed a duty on Local Authorities to return children wherever possible to their parents. Throughout the next two decades the assumption was that most children in care were there short term only. However, research published in 1973 by Rowe and Lambert showed that this was not so. The death of Maria Colwell in 1973 (who was returned home from foster care) also showed that there were severe deficiencies in the system. Goldstein, Freud and Solnit (1973) argued that attachments could quickly transfer, particularly for younger children. These researches led to the Children Act 1975 which gave more emphasis to Local Authorities on planning for children in care.
The upshot of these changes led to a greater
extent of long-term permanence planning for children. Courts tended to the view
that contact was a child right rather than a parental one but that the needs of
the child for a fresh start should over-ride parental interests.
The 1980 Child Care Act consolidated
previous childcare legislation. Section 3 of the 1980 Act enabled Local
Authorities to “assume parental rights” for, among other things, if the
parent was mentally ill and unfit to parent, had a disability causing the person
to be unfit to parent or is “…of
such habits and mode of life as to be unfit to have the care of the child.”
This background ethos led to some Local Authorities taking an aggressive
stance toward contact and permanence was often sought for children soon after
they came into care with "parental rights" being assumed.
Visits to residential establishments by parents were dealt with as
“discretionary” by the local authority and often curtailed because of the
child’s “bad behaviour” as was “home leave” for the child. The Family
Rights Group (a UK charity supporting parents) was formed as a counter pressure group
to this “on high” social work arrogance. And if that sounds an extraordinary
thing to say to more recent social work graduates, then I'm sorry to have to tell
you that it really was like that for some children and their parents.
In 1983 changes in the law were made so that proper notice to the parent of the Local Authority assumption of parental rights had to be given. This did not lead to any significant changes as the Courts usually backed the Local Authority. Throughout this time and up until the 1990s the prevailing belief was that contact should occur unless rehabilitation was ruled out. The notion of an “open adoption” with post-adoptive contact was almost unheard of.
The fiasco of the Cleveland Inquiry in 1988 had a major impact on the framing of the Children Act 1989. Parental rights were seen as having being abused by the social care agencies. Parental rights were built into the Children Act (section 3) and continue in all circumstances under any Children Act Order that can be given by a Court. Only via a deliberate Court decision under Section 34 (4) of the Children Act can contact be permanently severed although parental responsibility can now be transferred under Section 21 of the Adoption and Children Act 2002.
We also cover the Supervision of Contact on this course: the rules surrounding supervision and the requirements and difficulties of supervising contact. See also Attachment Theory link below.
Contact is also of key importance in "working through" with the child their feelings toward themselves and others. This debriefing of the child following contact is a key event demanding knowledge and skill and which should always follow every contact and should be done by the same person every time. This is a key aspect of Life Story Work which should happen with ALL children in the public care system. It often doesn't happen and not because the child refuses (if refused it cannot be forced) but simply because it is not offered.
This course can very usefully be combined with the Osiris course on Attachment Theory.
