Supervising Contact Visits: A Trauma-Informed Approach Based on Principles of Child-Parent Psychotherapy

AbstractChildren who have been removed from their homes as a result of maltreatment and abuse and have been placed in foster care or are in the process of adoption often continue to meet their birth parents by court decision. This contact is often held under supervision. Supervised contact is intended to provide children the opportunity to maintain the parent-child relationship in a safe and neutral setting. Findings have shown that in some cases supervised contact can be harmful, undermining the children ’s sense of security and placement stability. It has been suggested that agencies have limited practice skills to help build constructive relationships through contact visits, and may thereby be failing to offer sufficient support for supervised contact. While the literature highlights various asp ects that need to be implemented to improve visits, there is a lack of a trauma-informed approach, whereby professionals supervising visits can address the traumatic experiences that led to the circumstances of supervised visitation and respond to the difficult emotions of all those involved. This p aper provides practice guidelines for professionals accompanying supervised visits using principles of Child-Parent Psychotherapy, a trauma-informed dyadic intervention model for young children. Case vignettes illustrate how professionals supervising contact might address the child’s trauma histor y and help birth parents and foster/adoptive parents respond to the child’s attachme...
Source: Clinical Social Work Journal - Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research