In depth: Contact and reunification require ongoing assessment of the child’s needs
Updated: Oct 14
Written by Tanyah Cain, special educator with a master’s degree in psychosocial learning difficulties, Cain MindSYNC.
Purpose and position: This article argues for a substantial need for research into lived experience. Research gaps must prompt closer scrutiny of child welfare practice; they must not be used to dismiss children’s and parents’ accounts. Intrusive decisions and substantial resource use demand better knowledge about the decision-making basis, adapted support and actual outcomes. Experiences shared with FvsB help formulate questions to investigate; they are not presented as representative prevalence estimates.
The practical question is where children and families experience gaps between assessment, promised support and the help actually delivered. We need to examine relevant alternative explanations, suitable adaptations and whether intervention changes life for the better.
An in-depth professional discussion in the series on children and child welfare.
Relationships need more than a calendar
Contact should be assessed through safety, relationships and everyday life. Hours alone do not establish quality. This article considers improving contact without automatically treating children’s reactions as conclusions about parents.
Contact and reunification are different questions. A safe relationship may matter even when returning home is not appropriate. Contact can also form part of a possible reunification plan. Assessments need to follow change over time.
AI-generated illustration. The image does not depict a real event.
Norwegian guidance
Bufdir’s April 2026 guidance on implementing contact emphasises planning, cooperation, children’s feedback and support for parents. It concerns implementation within established arrangements and combines duties with recommendations rather than providing an effectiveness trial. [1]
The guidance on assessing arrangements calls for individual assessment. Where reunification remains the goal, contact should sustain relationships while protecting health and development. Current best interests can justify limits. [2]
Examine reactions in context
In a fictional example, a child sleeps poorly after a visit. This warrants follow-up but does not identify the cause. Explore the meeting, transitions, separation, conflict, travel and other possible burdens.
Pleasant contact also requires careful interpretation. Few visible signs of distress do not prove safety. Combine the child’s account with observations, conditions and patterns across meetings.
Try and evaluate accommodation
If a child wants contact but finds the arrangement difficult, examine place, timing, duration, support, activity and handover. Changes need a purpose and no option suits everyone.
Where contact involves real risk, accommodation may not be enough. Describe the risk and required protection. Restrictions should be grounded in the child’s situation rather than used as responses to adult disagreement.
Reunification needs a concrete plan
A possible reunification plan should specify what needs to change, how change is assessed and the support required. Vague expectations such as ‘show insight’ are harder to evaluate than concrete care and safety goals.
NIM’s 2026 account covers human rights violations and later inadmissibility decisions. Case law requires individual reasoning and does not automatically settle reunification in every case. [3]
Proposals for evaluation
I recommend separating children’s experiences, adult observations and professional interpretation. Describe what helped, difficulties, changes tried and responsibility for follow-up. Explain what the child’s feedback led to.
State when arrangements will be reviewed and what information can trigger an earlier review. When return is not considered safe, children still need help understanding relationships, contact options and limits.
Research gaps
Studies should follow contact quality, experience and development, distinguishing age, placement and purpose. Counting hours alone does not capture safety, closeness or burden.
Explore young people’s, parents’ and foster carers’ perspectives together without automatic priority for one explanation. Organisational accounts can suggest research questions, but sampling and recruitment must be explained before generalising.
Evidence and scope
This is a professional discussion of selected sources, not a systematic literature review. Research descriptions use available abstracts and verified publication pages. Public guidance was checked on 13 October 2026. Qualitative findings illuminate experience without automatically establishing prevalence or causation. Practice proposals and fictional examples are a professional synthesis without established effect sizes. No new FvsB data were analysed.
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