Research Translation

Developmental Child Welfare

2020, Vol. 2(3) 153–171
Virtual parent-child ª The Author(s) 2020
Article reuse guidelines:
visitation in support of family sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/2516103220960154

reunification in the time journals.sagepub.com/home/dcw

of COVID-19

Jacqueline Singer1 and David Brodzinsky2

Abstract
When children are removed from their birth parents and placed in foster care, child welfare policy
and practice prioritizes family reunification in permanency planning. Of the many services offered
to families in support of reunification, parent-child visitation is one of the most important. The
purposes of visitation are to maintain and support the parent-child relationship, facilitate improved
parenting skills, and offer social workers opportunities to gauge the family’s progress in meeting
reunification goals. Whether supervised or unsupervised, parent-child visitations most often
involve face-to-face contact between family members. During periods of sheltering in place in
response to COVID-19, however, face-to-face visits have been largely curtailed. In their place,
child welfare agencies have begun using virtual visitation through various technology platforms such
as smartphones, FaceTime, Zoom, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger and Skype, often facilitated by
foster parents. A number of questions have arisen, however, about the effectiveness of virtual
visitations and how best to use them as a means of supporting reunification goals. In the present
article, we examine existing data on how children respond to virtual communication with parents
and extended family and what practical issues and training needs are encountered when imple-
menting virtual visits in juvenile dependency cases.

Keywords
COVID 19, family reunification, foster care, social work case planning, virtual parent-child
visitation

1
Private Practice, USA
2
Rutgers University, USA

Corresponding author:
David Brodzinsky, Department of Psychology, Rutgers University, 526 Monarch Ridge Drive, Walnut Creek, CA 94597,
USA.
Email: dbrodzinsk@comcast.net
154 Developmental Child Welfare 2(3)

Each year tens of thousands of children are removed from their homes by child protective services
and placed into foster care. The reasons for their removal are varied, but typically are due to child
neglect or abuse, parental substance abuse, coping difficulties in parents, child behavior problems,
domestic violence, and/or family homelessness. Regardless of the reasons, child welfare policy and
practice prioritizes family reunification as the initial case goal, which is in keeping with family
preservation and permanency planning policies and objectives (Child Welfare League of America,
1995). Although not all children are able to return to their parents or primary caregivers, a majority
typically do. For example, in the United States, the most recent 5 year statistics from the Adoption
and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System (AFCARS) indicate that from 2014 to 2018,
family reunification was the case goal in 55% of new foster care placements and 50% of children
exiting foster care during this period were reunified with family members (U.S. Department of
Health and Human Services, 2014–2018).
To support the process of family reunification, child welfare agencies provide parents and
children with a variety of time-limited services that build on family members’ strengths and
address the concerns that were the basis for the child’s removal. Social workers implement
strategies geared toward actively engaging family members in the reunification process by clar-
ifying the reasons for child removal and the steps that need to be taken before the child can be
safely returned home. Parents may be expected to enter and complete a substance abuse program,
attend AA/NA, parenting classes and/or anger management classes, enroll in mental health coun-
seling, and/or obtain adequate housing. Children may be offered mental health treatment, medical
services, or other interventions to meet their special needs.
Among the many reunification services provided to the family, one of the most important is
parent-child visitations (Partners for Our Children, 2016). The purpose of visitation, where family
reunification is the goal, is to help children cope with separation and loss while in placement,
support the parent-child relationship by helping biological parents become more attuned to their
child’s needs, and to foster and/or maintain the attachment bond between them. Parent-child
attachment is fundamental for the child’s health and well-being, not only in early childhood but
throughout life (Cassidy, 2016; Sroufe, 2016). Removal of a child from a parent’s care and
placement into a foster home is disruptive to the parent-child attachment (Dozier & Rutter,
2016) and increases the child’s risk for adjustment difficulties. Frequent and ongoing visitation
between the parent and child, on the other hand, helps to ameliorate some of the relationship
disruption, supports children’s emotional well-being, and facilitates a more successful reunifica-
tion process (Mallon & Hess, 2005). In addition to supporting parent-child relationships, reunifi-
cation services may also involve visits with siblings, the goal of which is to maintain and
strengthen siblings bonds and prepare the child for returning to the family that also includes
brothers and/or sisters. Another purpose of visitation is to offer social workers the opportunity
to gauge the quality of the parent-child relationship, the ability of parents to respond appropriately
to their children’s needs, and to assess progress toward achieving reunification goals.
The frequency, setting, and nature of visitation for parents and children depends on a number of
factors including the child’s age, where the child and parents currently reside, the reasons for the
child’s removal, the extent of birth family cooperation with case goals, and whether supervision is
necessary (Child Welfare Information Gateway, 2006; Partners for Children, 2016). Whenever
possible, visitations between parents and children involve face-to-face meetings, supplemented
when feasible by distance contact through telephone calls, texting, FaceTime exchanges, and/or
other virtual visual forms of communication. Face-to-face visitation is given priority because it
Singer and Brodzinsky 155

provides the best opportunity for parents and children to interact directly through all physical and
sensory modalities and involves the type of interactions they commonly manifest in their everyday
lives. Depending on the children’s age and the setting of the visits, parents may have the ability to
feed their children, change their diapers/clothes, clean them, offer physical affection and comfort,
have intimate conversations, read books to them, play with them, impose limits on their behavior,
and when necessary, correct misbehavior. All of these parenting behaviors are critical for support-
ing the parent-child attachment bond (Cassidy, 2016; Pasco Fearson & Belsky, 2016) and facil-
itating more effective caregiving. Observation of face-to-face contact between parents and children
also offers the best opportunity for social workers to assess the quality of the parent’s attunement
to, understanding of, and ability to address their children’s needs.

Reunification services in the time of COVID-19

The health crisis associated with COVID-19, which emerged throughout the world in the first
quarter of 2020, posed significant challenges for judicial, legal and child welfare professionals in
meeting the needs of families who were involved in juvenile dependency cases, especially in
response to sheltering in place (SIP) guidelines issued by local, regional, state, or national author-
ities. Recognizing these challenges, the Children’s Bureau in the United States offered guidance
that encouraged flexibility in implementing statutory guidelines during the pandemic when service
delivery to families was disrupted and encouraged professionals to consider alternative ways of
providing family time and rehabilitation services in supporting reunification goals (Children’s
Bureau, 2020). In the United States, there has been variability in how jurisdictions have responded
to the pandemic with states and local authorities issuing their own emergency rules and procedures
for addressing legal and service delivery issues during the pandemic—see for example, California
Judicial Council Emergency Rules (2020) related to COVID-19.1
Because close contact between people increased the risk of spreading the disease, traditional
face-to-face visitations and other reunification services for foster children and their biological
parents (e.g., mental health counseling, domestic violence groups, parenting classes, etc.) involv-
ing direct contact with others were either curtailed or became much more difficult to implement.
These challenges potentially jeopardized the reunification process in terms of maintaining and
strengthening parent-child relationships, addressing children’s special needs, fostering improved
caregiving skills for biological parents, and providing a basis for assessing progress toward reuni-
fication goals by social workers. In addition, for some children who previously had frequent face-
to-face contact with their parents prior to the onset of COVID-19, the restrictions on direct contact
following SIP guidelines potentially could be traumatic for them, exacerbating pre-existing emo-
tional and relationship challenges. Very young children are especially vulnerable for adjustment
difficulties as they would likely not be able to understand the reasons underlying the loss of
regular, direct contact with their mother, father, and/or siblings, and the critical time frame for
developing primary attachment relationships with parents could be jeopardized.
In response to SIP guidelines, child welfare agencies began implementing other means of
maintaining regular parent-child contact, primarily through telephone calls and virtual communi-
cation technology platforms such as FaceTime, Skype, and Zoom. There have been concerns,
however, about relying on virtual visits as a means of supporting reunification goals and whether
this type of contact is effective and/or would be well received by birth parents, foster children,
foster parents, and social workers (Neil et al., 2020). Furthermore, there have been questions about
whether the time frame for reunification should continue to follow statutory guidelines for juvenile
156 Developmental Child Welfare 2(3)

dependency cases when parent-child visits are only or primarily through virtual means or be
extended to compensate for the loss of time in direct face-to-face contact as a result of SIP
(California Judicial Council Emergency Rules, 2020). Additional concerns have been raised about
the disruption to other services for parents and children that were either curtailed or truncated
during this period (National Conference of State Legislatures, 2020).
In this article, we address the role of virtual visitation in supporting reunification services for
children in foster care. Although other types of reunification services, especially for parents (e.g.,
parenting classes, substance abuse treatment, etc), have also been impacted by SIP guidelines, the
issues associated with these services will not be addressed here.2 Rather, we focus primarily on the
following questions: (a) What do we know about how children respond to virtual communication?;
(b) Is this type of contact effective in supporting an existing parent-child relationship when
opportunities for face-to-face contact are limited or have been curtailed?; (c) Are there age/
developmental or contextual factors that limit or enhance the effectiveness of virtual communi-
cation?; (d) What are the pros and cons of relying on virtual communication as a means of
supporting the reunification process?; (e) How do virtual visits affect case planning?; and (f) What
practical and training issues are associated with utilizing virtual communication technologies in
supporting the reunification process? In addressing these issues, we rely on existing research
studies in various areas regarding how children utilize and benefit from virtual communication
with parents and others. Because there is limited research on the role of virtual communication in
child welfare cases, we also draw upon our own clinical and forensic experience in family law and
juvenile dependency cases.

Virtual parent-child communication

Separation from parents can be extremely stressful for children, increasing their risk for adjustment
difficulties (Kobak et al., 2016). In order to bridge the gap created by separation between children
and their loved ones, virtual contact has been utilized in a number of areas of family life including
families with incarcerated parents (McLeod & Bonsu, 2018; Phillips, 2012; Skora & Poehlmann-
Tynan, 2020), military families (Mathew-Juarez et al., 2013; Mogil et al., 2015), families with
divorced parents (LaMarca, 2012; Saini & Polak, 2018; Saini et al., 2013), extended family
members (e.g., grandparents) (McClure et al., 2018) and child welfare families (Iyer et al.,
2020; Neil et al., 2020; Quinn et al., 2015). Research in these areas has found that children can
benefit significantly in terms of knowledge development, emotional well-being and relationship
maintenance from virtual communication with parents and others from whom they are separated.
Even infants and toddlers have been shown to respond appropriately to video mediated social
interactions with family members (McClure & Barr, 2017; McClure et al., 2018). Through active,
playful, and emotionally positive engagement, parents are able to gain their young children’s
attention, facilitate positive emotions in them, foster curiosity and exploration of their immediate
environment, offer distant forms of affection and comfort (e.g., throwing kisses, pretend hugging)
and display interest in their children’s activities and daily life experiences (McClure & Barr, 2017).
The success of virtual parent-child contact, however, is often tied to the involvement of an active
and motivated caregiver or support person who helps the child engage the distant parent, supports
joint attention, and makes the interaction positive, playful and relevant. In addition, developmental
factors also play a role in the success of virtual communication between parents and children. As
would be expected, it is easier for older children to use virtual communication than younger children,
not only because they are more experienced with technology devices and less dependent on a
Singer and Brodzinsky 157

supportive caregiver to facilitate virtual contact, but also because they have better developed atten-
tive, cognitive, communicative, and social skills than young children (Iyer et al., 2020). In contrast,
very young children or those with developmental delays are dependent upon the presence of an
attentive, motivated, and positive caregiver or support person to benefit from virtual communication.
Despite the emerging evidence that virtual communication can be very beneficial for children
when they are separated from their parents and extended family members, video contact has a
number of well-known limitations compared to face-to-face family interactions (McClure & Barr,
2017). For example, the lack of physical contact makes it more difficult for the parent to maintain
the child’s attention, facilitate positive emotions, and offer physical affection and comforting, all
of which are critical in fostering and maintaining secure parent-child emotional bonds (Stack,
2001). Direct eye contact and joint visual attention (e.g., pointing as a communicative gesture) are
also more difficult to achieve with young children in video chats, which can interfere with the
development or maintenance of the parent-child relationship, as well as compromise learning by
the child (Parkinson & Lea, 2011). Furthermore, social contingency interactions (i.e., the ability of
the parent to acknowledge and appropriately respond to a child’s behavior in a close, temporal
manner), which are a critical component of parental attunement to children, can also be impaired in
video interactions because of gaze misalignment between these individuals or because of all too
common delays in the electronic connection between the devices being used by the parties
(McClure & Barr, 2017). In short, although virtual visual communication offers many opportuni-
ties to foster and sustain relationships between parents and children who are separated from one
another, and is certainly superior to telephone chats because of the added visual input, it lacks the
richness of face-to-face family interactions.
Furthermore, there is no research suggesting that virtual visitation, by itself, can facilitate a
secure attachment to a parent independent of face-to-face contact, although it may well help
maintain an existing attachment. This is especially true for children who are removed from care
under the age of three. Maintaining attachment relationships is especially critical when children go
into foster care as placement, in and of itself, disrupts the connection between parent and child
(Dozier & Rutter, 2016). Face-to-face visits help to preserve, as best as possible, the quality of the
parent-child relationship that existed prior to removal. Fostering security in the attachment rela-
tionship requires a parent to be attuned to the child’s signals for care and to be able to provide such
comfort and care when needed. These tasks are made much more difficult, and at times impossible,
when visits are only or primarily through virtual means.
In summary, research indicates that children, including those who are quite young, are increas-
ingly being exposed to electronic technology in their everyday lives (McClure & Barr, 2017).
Although older children are more adept at using virtual communication than younger children,
studies show that even infants and toddlers are capable of utilizing virtual technologies to learn and
develop new skills, respond appropriately to social and emotional cues of a distant parent, and
recognize people with whom they are interacting. Relevant to this article, is the question of how
these findings translate to the issue of using virtual means of communication between parents and
children in the service of reunification goals, especially during times of SIP.

Implementing virtual parent-child visitation in juvenile dependency

cases
There is little research on the use of virtual visitation to satisfy statutory requirements for parent-
child contact during juvenile dependency proceedings, or on the effectiveness of such contact on
158 Developmental Child Welfare 2(3)

foster children’s well-being and their relationship with birth family members (Birnbaum, 2020).
Existing research and literature reviews point to a number of perceived advantages and disadvan-
tages in using smartphones and video assisted visitation, as well as challenges in implementing
such visitation, in child welfare cases (Iyer et al., 2020; Neil et al., 2020; Quinn et al. 2015). In the
sections to follow we highlight the findings of Neil et al. (2020), the only study, to date, providing
empirical data on the experiences and perspectives of key stakeholders related to virtual contact
between foster youth and their birth families during the pandemic lockdown; this is followed by a
more general review of the benefits and drawbacks of virtual parent-child communication in
support of family reunification in juvenile dependency cases.

Varying perspectives on virtual parent-child communication during

shelter in place
As noted above, Neil et al. (2020) is the only study, to date, that has reported data on how different
individuals involved with children in foster care experienced virtual parent-child communication
during the pandemic. Researchers surveyed 197 individuals in the United Kingdom (social workers
and other professionals, foster parents, adoptive parents, kinship caregivers, and birth relatives),
and had telephone interviews with 24 of the respondents, regarding their experiences of and
perspectives on the role and impact of virtual communication during SIP. No direct information
from children was gathered, although the adult participants provided their own views on how
children coped with virtual visits.
The study found that rapid and widespread use of digital communication occurred once the
lockdown was put in place. In seeking guidance on the best way to support virtual communication
between foster youth and their birth families, social workers indicated that the most helpful
guidance addressed risk prevention and management, as well as information that facilitated col-
laboration between birth parents and foster parents. Although virtual visits saved time for social
workers, they required learning new ways of working remotely, as well as making adjustments to
new demands impacting contact plans. Social workers also reported that the primary ways they
supported parent-child contact during the pandemic was helping birth parents understand the need
for changes in visitation, helping them with the logistics of technology and online platforms
needed for virtual visits, and helping them prepare for and manage virtual contact.
Demands on foster parents increased considerably, especially when they were responsible for
facilitating virtual visits for youth in their care. Nevertheless, many adapted quickly to this new
mode of parent-child contact. In fact, some reported that they already were using video chats to
support foster children’s relationships with their birth family. In addition, they found it easier to
reschedule missed visits when using virtual technology. Others, however, reported receiving little
support from authorities during the pandemic, leading to increased anxiety about their role in
supporting virtual parent-child contact and/or how to do it effectively. Concerns about the intrusive
nature of virtual visits into the life of the foster family also were noted, as were logistical diffi-
culties in scheduling virtual visits for multiple children in their care with different birth families. In
many cases, previously supervised visits between foster youth and their birth relatives were now
being monitored by the foster parents, adding a new and unclear responsibility to their child
welfare role. According to some foster parents, video contact between children and their parents
was easier to manage when there was a pre-existing positive relationship between themselves and
the birth parents. Finally, foster parents reported finding it difficult to help babies and young
Singer and Brodzinsky 159

children engage their parents during video calls and did not feel adequately prepared to support
such visits.
Being cut off from direct contact with their children in foster care increased the worries of many
birth parents, although most accepted the need to terminate face-to-face visits during the lock-
down. Parents with young children worried the most, especially because it was more difficult to
engage their children during virtual visits, and they especially missed the opportunity to be in
physical contact with them. There were mixed reports by birth parents about the foster parent’s
involvement in virtual visits, with some welcoming the opportunity to get to know the people
caring for their children and others resenting the intrusion of the foster parents during the parent-
child visits. Despite efforts by social workers and other professionals to help birth parents manage
the changes in visitation during the pandemic, many birth parents were dissatisfied with the type or
extent of support received.
According to respondents, maintaining contact with the birth family through virtual means was
very important for most children. Foster youth who had better relationships with their birth
families prior to the lockdown were viewed as having an easier time adjusting to virtual visits.
Digital communication was found to be very familiar to many youth, especially those who were
older, and it was reported that such communication normalized contact for them with their birth
family. For some children, virtual contact with their parents while in the foster home helped them
integrate these two aspects of their lives. However, digital contact was not universally positive for
foster children, especially for those who had existing emotional problems or histories of conflict
with their birth parents. Many respondents expressed worry about the impact of loss of physical
contact between children and their birth parents, especially for young children, and how this
consequence of virtual visits would impact the reunification plan.
In short, all respondents reported both positive and negative consequences of switching from
face-to-face visits to virtual visits as a result of the pandemic lockdown. Regarding the role of
virtual visits in the future, most saw this form of communication between children in foster care
and their birth family as a valuable addition to, but not a substitution for, traditional face-to-face
visitation.

Benefits and drawbacks of virtual visits in support of family

reunification
The logistics of virtual communication
First and foremost, birth families and foster families must have access to the technology needed for
virtual visits and the skills to use this technology. The Pew Research Center estimates that in the
United States 29% of households with incomes less than $30,000 do not own a smartphone, 44%
do not have home internet services, nearly half (46%) do not own computers and the majority
(70%) do not own tablets (Anderson & Kumar, 2019). Even if a parent owns a computer, it must
have a camera and microphone to be used for a video call. For those parents who have and must
rely on their cell phones, adequate cell phone coverage is necessary. In rural areas, poor internet
coverage may create additional barriers to having virtual visits.
While there is no direct research on screen size and virtual communication between parents and
children, larger screens have been shown to be more effective in maintaining attention, increasing
arousal (Reeves et al., 1999) and gathering information among participants (Dunaway & Soroka,
2019). These added benefits may allow for more meaningful contact between participants and
160 Developmental Child Welfare 2(3)

allow parents and children using technology for virtual visits to feel more satisfied with the visit.
Using cell phones for virtual visits can, however, result in the loss of details and subtleties due to
screen size, (Kleiman & Barenholtz, 2020) and difficulties accommodating multiple participants at
each end of the conversation. Finally, there can be challenges for the parties connecting to the
software, navigating on the platform being used or staying connected during the video call which
can lead to frustration for parents and children, as well as visitation supervisors for those cases
requiring supervised visits,.
The technology used for virtual visits also creates some challenges. The feedback loop between
parent and child is more limited during virtual visits than in face-to-face interactions. Not only is it
difficult to maintain eye contact during a virtual visit due to the nature of the equipment (Bohannon
et al., 2013), the lack of physical connection between a parent and child does not allow them to
touch, hold, hug or smell each other, experiences that are especially important when developing or
maintaining attachments or building trust (Cassidy, 2016).
Privacy is also an issue that needs to be considered. Creating privacy for virtual visits may be a
challenge for some birth parents and foster families due to lack of space in their living environment
or because there are other adults in the home or other children who need attention. Add to these
challenges the possibility of homeschooling due to school closures during the pandemic (Sharf-
stein & Morphew, 2020) and it may be difficult for foster parents to find both time and space to
have virtual visits in their homes.
In the United States, for parents who were having supervised visits prior to the pandemic,
parent-child interactions were already being observed by a third party, typically by a trained
monitor from a dedicated family supervision organization or by a child welfare worker. In the
vast majority of cases, foster parents were not directly involved in supervision. When parent-child
visitations had to be altered because of the pandemic, many foster parents were asked to monitor
visits. Introduction of the foster parent as a facilitator or supervisor of visits can create additional
privacy challenges for the birth parent/child/foster parent relationships (see Neil et al., 2020). Birth
parents may be sensitive to foster parents having visual access to their homes and living circum-
stances. Foster parents may also be uncomfortable with birth family having visual access to their
home and possible knowledge of where they live. And for children, having both the birth parent
and foster parent present during the visit may create undue anxiety and undermine their sense of
privacy and perhaps the nature and quality of the parent-child interaction. In addition, if sibling
visits for children living in separate foster homes occur virtually, privacy issues emerge when
foster parents obtain knowledge about the other siblings and their foster placements. Such infor-
mation is typically viewed as confidential in juvenile dependency cases. Finally, privacy must also
be ensured on the technology platforms used for virtual visits as juvenile dependency proceedings
are confidential and children have the right to privacy in their visits with parents, siblings and other
relatives (see for example, California Welfare and Institutions Code §16001.9 (a)(12)). In fact,
problems with privacy on platforms such as Zoom have been noted during the current health crisis
(Hodge, 2020).
Juvenile dependency cases often involve visitations between children and their siblings living
elsewhere. At times, these siblings are with birth parents or relatives and at other times they are
living in different foster homes. When siblings are separated, simultaneous video visits with all
family members can be logistically challenging and communicatively chaotic because of sound
delays, overlapping conversations, and other technological issues with multiple participants. More-
over, the typical activity of mutual play between siblings during face-to-face visits is very difficult
Singer and Brodzinsky 161

during a virtual interaction. These problems can further undermine the meaningfulness of contact
between siblings who are already suffering a loss due to removal from their parents, separation
from each other, and other disruptions due to the pandemic. Complicating virtual sibling visits is
the fact that they often involve multiple foster parents, which is likely to add to the communicative
chaos as they attempt to support their foster child’s engagement with his/her siblings. In such cases,
social workers may suggest separate virtual visits between siblings which add further complexity
for foster parents in establishing an acceptable contact schedule with other families.
On the positive side, for all parties, virtual visits can require less planning for the parties and
offer more flexibility than face to face visits (Barr, 2020). Neither the child, birth parent, foster
parent or social worker needs to travel for the visits to occur. Moreover, the birth parent can use all
of the resources they have in their home to engage their child (e.g., toys, books, stuffed animals)
rather than having to bring these items to a visitation center. Additionally, if virtual visits are taking
place in the foster home, children have the opportunity to share more information about their living
environments with their biological parents which, in turn, may allow them to feel more connected
to each other, even in their absence (Neil et al., 2020). For children who have difficulty tolerating
longer visits, shorter visits can take place virtually, allowing for more frequent contact between
parents and their children in foster care than is usually planned when visitation is primarily through
face-to-face contact. Virtual visits can also ease anxiety for children who are reluctant to meet
face-to-face with a parent because of past abuse; they can also ease anxiety for foster parents who
may be concerned about how the child will be treated during a visit. Through virtual visits, the
child has the opportunity to ease into seeing the parent, and the foster parent can lessen their
concerns after seeing positive interactions between the child and the birth parent during the video
call (Barr, 2020).

Child related factors in virtual communication

The child’s age is a factor in the ability to independently use and benefit from virtual communi-
cation with parents and other relatives. As previously noted, younger children are less likely than
older children to have experience using smartphones, tablets, and computers, and therefore may
require the assistance of foster parents, a social worker, or another support person to use these
devices for purposes of parent-child visitations (Rideout & Robb, 2019). To benefit from the use of
this kind of technology, adult scaffolding is necessary to help young children bridge the gap
between the screen and real life (Connell et al., 2015). For example, foster parents or social
workers support virtual communication for young children by their active involvement with the
process, by reinforcing children’s orientation to and engagement of the birth parent, and by social
referencing behavior (i.e., pointing out the birth parent’s words or actions) (Walden & Ogan,
1988). When adults provide this type of support, there are clear beneficial effects for children,
including knowledge development, recognition of and responsiveness to parents, and maintenance
of an existing parent-child relationship. This is true even for older infants and toddlers who are able
to recognize a parent’s voice and face during a virtual visit, reinforcing the emotional/relational
connection to them in the absence of physical contact. On the other hand, for children who were
removed from parental care in the first 6 months of life, there is no evidence suggesting that virtual
visits, independent of face-to-face contact, can promote the development of a reciprocal attach-
ment between child and parent.
Children who are emotionally, cognitively, or physically impaired may also require assistance
from others so they can participate in virtual visits with their parents and relatives. Additional
162 Developmental Child Welfare 2(3)

challenges may present for children who can become dysregulated, especially those who have been
affected by trauma (McLean, 2016), and for children who have attention deficit disorder, visual or
auditory impairments or severe mental health issues. Children may be experiencing the added
trauma of separation from parents due to the pandemic and SIP orders, have worries and concerns
about their birth parent’s health or have increased anxiety themselves (Xie et al., 2020). For these
children, if they can participate in the virtual visit at all, more active engagement and emotional
support of a foster parent or visitation supervisor will be necessary.
In a review of the literature on the effects of digital contact on the well-being of children in care,
Iyer et al. (2020) reported that older children and adolescents felt staying in contact by text, phone
or social media with birth parents, siblings and friends was important to them. They found using
these devices lacked the formality and structure of regularly scheduled, face-to-face visits, which
allowed for a more natural, spontaneous, and family-like connection with birth relatives. Further-
more, regular digital contact with birth parents and other relatives helped reduce their feelings of
isolation and increased a sense of connectedness and family bonding. In contrast, foster parents and
social workers sometimes found the informality and immediacy of digital contact between youth
and their birth parents to be a “nuisance” and resulted in concerns about excessive use of phones by
youth as a means of staying in touch with birth relatives. These concerns are more likely when
independent communication between foster youth and their birth family violates court ordered
restrictions on the nature and frequency of their contact or when there are concerns that birth
family contact without supervision could be destabilizing for youth, placing them and the foster
placement at risk (Alford et al., 2019; MacDonald et al., 2017). Additionally, while older children
may have the ability to operate devices independently, the foster parent, for safety reasons, must
ensure the child’s access to an internet enabled device is monitored as appropriate to the child’s age
(Farrukh et al., 2014).

Relationship dynamics and challenges with virtual visitations

While there are some activities a parent can still do with a child during a virtual visit, such as
reading a book, playing a game or talking about day to day activities, during face-to-face visitation,
parents also have opportunities to provide food or a bottle for a hungry child, change a child’s
diaper or soiled clothes, hold, comfort or calm a child, and provide correction, redirection or praise
for the child when needed. Many of these actions cannot be done by the birth parent during virtual
visits or are more difficult to perform, reducing the opportunity to practice important parenting
skills. This can limit the birth parent’s ability to develop and strengthen attunement to his or her
child’s needs and provide for the child’s care, as well as interfere with the parent-child attachment
bond. These limits can also make it more difficult for social workers to gauge the parent’s progress
in achieving reunification goals.
Virtual visits may involve the assistance of the foster parent or a visitation supervisor. Foster
parents must partner with birth parents when assistance is needed for these visits to be successful
(Child Welfare Information Gateway, 2019). As noted by McClure et al. (2018), caregivers
provide scaffolding for young children to make virtual visits as close to face-to-face interactions
as possible. Foster parents may encourage a child to kiss the screen, pretend to hug the parent or
hand her or him an object, or organize to read a book or do an activity together with the birth parent
by having the same props in both locations (McClure & Barr, 2017). This level of organization may
take planning and certainly requires a highly cooperative, motivated, and involved foster parent.
Communication between the foster parent and birth parent may also be used to improve eye contact
Singer and Brodzinsky 163

during a video call between young children and their parents and to correct for delays inherent in
video communication which can affect social contingency and reciprocity in the parent-child
relationship. Foster parents can also help young children by narrating actions that do not occur
on screen or that require visual information which is not available to the birth parent. While
McClure and Barr (2017) provide many examples of the ways in which a caregiver can provide
direction and instruction to both the child and the distant parent to improve the quality of the virtual
visit, in the context of child welfare cases in which family reunification is the goal, there is a
presumption that the foster parent is willing and highly motivated to facilitate such visitation and
support the parent-child relationship. Unfortunately, this is not always the case. Nonetheless, these
kinds of behaviors can be easily learned by birth parents and visitation facilitators, including foster
parents, if they are sufficiently motivated and provided with appropriate guidance.
Coordination between a foster parent and birth parent might include who will plan for the
activities during the visit and how they will prepare for any items necessary to make the visit a
success. They also must determine how they will manage technical problems including challenges
getting onto a call, dropped calls, frozen screens or interruptions from other children or adults in
the home. A dropped call or frozen screen could create challenges, especially for a child who is just
mastering object constancy and, if not handled well, could increase the child’s anxiety.
On the positive side, foster parents, in interacting with a child in their care, can provide
modeling for the birth parent in narrating the child’s behavior and scaffolding to make an inter-
action successful or suggest activities which the child has enjoyed while in care. In real time, the
foster parent can provide suggestions or show the birth parent the child’s likes or dislikes. Further-
more, the birth parent can provide information about a child’s past preferences, how others in the
birth family are doing, and/or verbally support the child’s placement and relationship with the
foster parent (Birth and Foster Parent Partnership, 2020).
Challenges to successful virtual visits can occur, however, when the relationship between the
foster parent and birth parent is tenuous or involves a history of hostility, or if no opportunity has
been provided for the development of a positive working relationship. In such circumstances, birth
parents and their children may feel inhibited in their communication, including the expression of
affection or the sharing of memories that help them to maintain their bond. Hostility or conflict
between the adults can also result in a feeling of divided loyalty for the foster child, leading to a
belief that she/he must choose between the birth parent and foster parent. These kinds of challenges
are similar to the difficulties that exist for divorced parents who are in conflict (Saini & Polak,
2018) and may be more likely to occur in kinship foster placements when there is a history of intra-
familial conflict. Parents may try to manipulate the child or withhold information which essentially
undermines the purpose of the video exchange (Ganong et al., 2012). In child welfare cases, social
workers must assess the extent and quality of the relationship between birth family members and
the foster parent, as well as the foster parent’s level of commitment to virtual visits and their
support for reunification goals before requesting that they assume the responsibilities of visitation
facilitator/supervisor. When there are concerns about their relationship history or the foster par-
ent’s support for family reunification, case managers must assign the responsibility of facilitating
or supervising the virtual visit to the case social worker or a trained monitor from a dedicated
family supervision organization.
Even with reunification as a case goal, many parents still require supervision for visits with their
children. As interaction in virtual visits must be facilitated for some children, and the opportunities
for making independent parenting choices, such as providing for a child’s care or managing
164 Developmental Child Welfare 2(3)

behavior problems are much more limited during this type of visit, a social worker or visitation
supervisor may not have an opportunity to evaluate fully the birth parent’s parenting skills. If there
is no visitation supervisor who is observing the virtual visit, but a facilitator is still required, a
foster parent may have to act as both facilitator and supervisor. As noted previously, this can place
the foster parent in an awkward position vis-à-vis the parent and undermine their otherwise
cooperative working relationship. The foster parent may have to determine if a parent is capable
of participating in the visit due to substance use, if a visit should be cancelled because a parent was
late getting onto the video call, if intervention is necessary when a parent raises inappropriate
topics or if a visit should be terminated because the child is too upset or the parent becomes
abusive. These circumstances could create tension between the foster parent and the birth parent,
undermining both their relationship and the reunification process.
If a visitation supervisor is participating in a virtual visit, he/she also may need to intervene if
the foster parent is not maintaining a facilitative role in relation to the child’s interactions with the
birth parent. This type of intervention may run the risk of disrupting the relationship between the
foster parent and the social worker, a partnership which is also important for the child’s well-being
and the stability of the placement (Denlinger & Dorius, 2018).
It is clear that there are many advantages and disadvantages to using virtual visitation in support
of family reunification. However, there is no evidence to suggest that virtual communication can
replace face-to-face visits between birth parents and their children, especially for fostering primary
attachments between infants/toddlers and their birth parents. Of critical relevance for case plan-
ning, especially during times of SIP, is recognizing what information is gained and what is missed
by sole or primary reliance on virtual communication as a means of complying with statutory
requirements for parent-child visitation. In the next section, we address the implications of virtual
communication for case planning in juvenile dependency cases.

Implications for case planning and implementation

In the United States, the Federal Title IV-E program requires states to make reasonable efforts to
reunify children with their families if removed due to abuse or neglect (Child Welfare Information
Gateway, 2020). Juvenile dependency laws vary from state to state, including timeframes for
providing reunification services.3 In the state of California, for example, parents with children
under the age of three who enter the child welfare system or parents who have a child who is part of
a sibling group with a child under the age of three are entitled to receive a minimum of 6 months
of reunification services. Parents of children older than three years are entitled to 12 months of
reunification services. The time begins either 60 days after the child is placed in care, or from the
date of the jurisdictional hearing, whichever is earlier. These are short time frames to ensure that
children do not linger in foster care and that permanency plans can be developed and implemented
without undue delay. Under certain circumstances, if a parent is making progress, timeframes for
reunification services can be extended up to 24 months (California Welfare and Institutions Code
§366.22). However, the court can terminate reunification services and set a hearing to terminate
parental rights if a parent is not making progress toward case plan goals.
Reunification plans always provide for visits between parents and children. When the pandemic
emerged, face-to-face visits were suspended in many jurisdictions, or significantly altered in their
nature or frequency. In many cases, direct contact was replaced by virtual visits. However, it is
unclear what, if any, changes have been made to case plans, how virtual visits are being imple-
mented and utilized in assessing progress toward reunification goals, or if any training is being
Singer and Brodzinsky 165

offered to social workers, foster families and birth parents in using virtual technology in support of
reunification goals. How visits are currently being implemented and utilized is likely to vary
county to county, state to state, and country to country.
Most reunification plans allow varied visitation lengths for different age groups but visits are
often in the 1 to 2-hour range, at least once a month or more often (Worthington, 2019). As parents
progress in their case plan, visits move from supervised to unsupervised and often increase in
frequency and length, from shorter visits to longer ones including overnights in preparation for a
child’s return to the parent. Virtual visits are likely to represent a significant departure from pre-
pandemic parent-child interactions. Time frames for visits may need to be modified as research has
shown the optimal time for video visits is 15 to 20 minutes, especially for young children (McClure
& Barr, 2017). If the child welfare agency is not able to offer shorter but more frequent visits, birth
parents may lose valuable time with their children, compromising the reunification process.
Modifications of case plans will likely be necessary as some birth parents will be adversely
impacted by not having face-to-face contact and, as a result, have difficulty meeting their case plan
goals within the statutory timeframe. This can occur for any number of reasons including: (a)
limited parent motivation, participation or progress prior to the shelter in place order which
continues following the order; (b) difficulties with technology, making virtual visits difficult or
impossible; (c) a foster parent who is unwilling or unable to facilitate visits; and (d) case plan goals
that do not lend themselves to virtual contact.
Especially for young children, shorter visits with greater frequency are more effective and this
may require flexibility from both foster parents and birth parents (Barr, 2020). This flexibility may
allow a parent to see the everyday activities in which the child is engaged and may be less
disruptive for the foster family. However, if shorter visits are offered, consideration must be given
to how these shorter visits translate into real life scenarios. Parents can do well in caregiving for
brief periods but may have challenges when the time they spend with their child increases.
Managing siblings in a face to face interaction is likely to be qualitatively different from the
interactions that occur in virtual visits during which foster parents are acting as facilitators.
Additionally, birth parents cannot participate in all parenting behaviors during virtual visits
(e.g., physical comforting) and some of these behaviors are important to a parent’s case plan.
Consequently, the reunification timeframe may need to be extended once shelter in place orders are
lifted, not only to give birth parents more time to resolve previous parenting problems, but also to
give social workers more time to assess the family’s progress toward reunification goals.
Case plans often involve moving from supervised visits to unsupervised visits. A parent who
appears ready to move to unsupervised visits because short virtual visits have gone well, may not, in
fact, be ready for the additional responsibilities involved in longer unsupervised contact. Moving too
soon to unsupervised visits may undermine the parent’s progress or returning a child to a parent too
early may result in a reunification failure. Additionally, if social workers are not supervising virtual
visits, it will be more difficult to assess a parent’s progress toward their case plan goals.
If a case plan includes developing an attachment between a parent and child removed before the
age of 6 months or maintaining an attachment for a child less than 3 years, visits without physical
contact may not be sufficient to achieve case plan goals. Virtual visits may need to be more
frequent in order to guard against a negative outcome purely on the basis of the mode of service.
Finally, if the case plan includes a parent being able to manage multiple children, the ability to
exercise these skills with virtual visitation when children are not occupying the same physical
space will also make it difficult to evaluate how these skills translate into real life scenarios.
166 Developmental Child Welfare 2(3)

Timeframes for reunification may also need to be extended to allow a parent to develop or practice
these necessary skills.
For virtual visits to be successful, training of social workers, foster parents and birth parents
may be necessary. Training programs for foster parents have been effective in decreasing place-
ment disruptions (Price et al., 2008, Schoemaker et al., 2019) and improving a foster parent’s
ability to work with children with disruptive behavior problems (Solomon et al., 2016). Recently,
Mallette et al. (2020) examined the supports necessary for foster parents to be successful in
coordinating their interactions with the social welfare system, the child in their care and with birth
parents. Caregivers must know the rules and restrictions related to contact between parents and
children in foster placement, know how to manage behavioral or medical challenges for a foster
child in their care, understand how to develop a bond with their foster child and provide support to
or be a mentor for a birth parent. What was not contemplated in pre-COVID training was the need
for instructing foster parents in facilitating or supervising video visits between biological parents
and their children in foster care. Recently in response to the pandemic and the need for virtual
visits, Barr (2020) developed a training video for social workers which reviews the literature
related to the effectiveness of “video chat” with children under 1 year old and provides some tips
for foster parents and birth parents to make video visits successful.
Each family must be evaluated on a case-by-case basis to determine what training is required.
Social workers will need to assess the parties’ equipment requirements and access to the internet.
An assessment of the relationship between the foster parent and birth parent is essential to deter-
mine if the foster parent is willing to support the virtual visits and if the relationship between the
foster parent and birth parent is cooperative enough for virtual visits to be successful. Finally, an
assessment of the practical aspects of virtual visits for each family must be evaluated including if
visits are possible due to supervision needs of other children in the foster home, if there is enough
space to ensure privacy for visits or if the logistics lend themselves to virtual sibling visits, as just
some examples. Training may include how to connect to a video platform or troubleshoot con-
nection challenges. It may also provide information to help foster parents and birth parents develop
appropriate expectations for video visits versus face-to-face contact including: (a) the benefits of
video calls; even with babies; (b) how to determine the best time for virtual visits; (c) how to
prepare the child for a virtual visit; (d) how to manage connection problems while maintaining
contact between the birth parent and the child; (e) how to engage jointly with each other to support
children during a video call; (f) what kinds of props (books, toys, art supplies, snacks) to have
available or what activities can be shared; (g) how to engage and maintain the child’s attention; (h)
how to entice the child back to the call when his or her attention wanders; (i) how to understand the
child’s behavior when he/she loses interest; (j) how to respond when the child seeks care or
comfort from the foster parent; and (k) how to manage differences in expectations or conflicts
between the adults that might arise related to scheduling or behavior during the visits.

Conclusions and future directions

In response to the pandemic, child welfare organizations throughout the world have been forced to
rethink the way in which they can support reunification plans for children in foster care. In many
cases, they have switched from traditional face-to-face visitations between foster children, their
birth parents and other relatives to various forms of virtual visitation as an alternative way of
supporting the parent-child relationship. Virtual visitation has been shown to be extremely useful
in helping children maintain contact with their birth family and for birth parents to be able to
Singer and Brodzinsky 167

practice some types of caregiving behavior that are part of the reunification plan. At the same time,
there is sufficient data to conclude that while virtual visits can effectively supplement face-to-face
visits, they should not be viewed or used as a replacement for them. The time spent in virtual visits
cannot be equated with the time spent in face-to-face contact. The types of parenting skills that can
be supported in virtual visits are more limited than those in face-to-face visits. Furthermore, the
limitations inherent in virtual visits make it more difficult to foster or maintain a healthy, secure
parent-child attachment, and the benefits of this type of visitation are closely tied to the active
involvement of a positively motivated caregiver, a responsibility that is likely to fall on the
shoulders of foster parents.
Because every child welfare case is unique, the way in which alternative reunification strategies
are implemented must be evaluated on a case by case basis. Birth parents must be given reasonable
time and support to meet established reunification goals, without undue pressure from statutory
timeframes that are no longer realistic because of the inability to provide appropriate supports. At
the same time, children’s well-being must also be assessed in terms of the likelihood that reuni-
fication remains a realistic goal. Prolonging a decision about reunification indefinitely does not
serve the needs of foster children, since the longer children are in care the less likelihood of
successful reunification with the birth family (Mallon & Hess, 2005). Although shifting to virtual
visitation is unavoidable during times such as these, and certainly is better than not having visita-
tion at all, it remains unclear how children and their birth parents will cope with only sustained
virtual visits, without the opportunity to interact directly with one another.
Child welfare organizations are in unchartered waters, as are foster parents, birth parents, and
foster children. The pandemic has required everyone to learn new ways of interacting, with
equipment and technology platforms with which they may not be especially familiar. Yet one
thing we have already learned from virtual visitation is that it is a relatively easy form of com-
munication to learn and implement, allows for flexibility in scheduling and has beneficial effects
for most children and their birth families. In fact, the benefits of virtual visits are such that going
forward children and their birth families would be well served to ensure that reunification plans,
when appropriate, incorporate not only regular face-to-face contact, but also opportunities for
reasonably frequent virtual contact.
Such plans, however, will require assessment of the availability of technology devices for birth
families and foster families, as well as their knowledge in using various visual communication
platforms such as FaceTime, Zoom, and Skype. For those unfamiliar with these platforms, appro-
priate training will be necessary to ensure successful virtual visitations. Furthermore, additional
training and guidance will be necessary related to: (a) fostering appropriate expectations about the
role of virtual visits compared to face-to-face visits; (b) clarifying the parties’ roles and respon-
sibilities during virtual visits, especially for foster parents who may be expected to assume new
responsibilities as an active and positively motivated facilitator of the parent-child relationship; (c)
training for foster parents regarding how to engage in scaffolding behavior that maximizes the
benefits of virtual visits for children and their birth parents; (d) guidelines for social workers in
how to gauge progress toward reunification goals based upon virtual visits; and (e) guidelines on
how to integrate virtual visits with face-to-face visits, not only during times of SIP, but also as a
regular and ongoing part of the reunification process in the future. Until further research is
conducted, we will not know the extent to which SIP orders and the use of virtual visitation in
place of face-to-face contact for parents and their children in foster care have affected case
planning and the parents’ ability to meet reunification goals within statutory timeframes.
168 Developmental Child Welfare 2(3)

While SIP orders have placed additional burdens on families and the child welfare system, we
should also consider this an opportunity to strengthen the partnership between social workers, birth
parents and foster families. With appropriate training, virtual visits can be used as a valuable
adjunct to face-to-face visits, offering more contact between birth parents and their children,
supporting the enhancement of parenting skills and fostering stronger and healthier parent-child
bonds.

Acknowledgments
The authors wish to acknowledge John Passalacqua, Esq. and David Meyers, Esq., attorneys at Dependency
Legal Services, Rocklin, CA for first bringing to our attention some of issues and concerns being discussed by
judicial, legal, and child welfare authorities regarding the role of virtual visitation in support of family
reunification during the pandemic.

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or
publication of this article.

Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD
David Brodzinsky https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8431-8942

Notes
1. Variability in supporting family time visits has also been reported in other countries, with some allowing
face-to-face contact for children deemed to be vulnerable (Michael Tarren-Sweeny, personal communi-
cation, August 26, 2020)
2. Although the pandemic has impacted child welfare services throughout the world, posing challenges in
supporting parent-child reunification for those youngsters in foster care in many countries, our focus will
only be on the implications of the health crisis for family reunification practices in the United States.
National differences in juvenile dependency law and child welfare practice may limit the extent to which
our conclusions and recommendations can be generalized to other countries.
3. https://www.childwelfare.gov/topics/systemwide/laws-policies/state/.

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