Reuniting Youth With Their Families
Reunifying youth in foster care with their biological families is one of the biggest and most important parts of our work in our Intensive Foster Care and Family Support & Stabilization programs. In that spirit, we are pleased to announce that six youth in our foster care program will soon be reunited with their families!
A trio of brothers, ages 6, 9, and 11, will soon be reuniting with their biological father. The boys have spent four years in foster care with us.
A 14-year-old boy reunited with his mother and sister, after two and a half years in a Bridges Homeward foster home. When the 14-year-old entered our program, this was his third time being removed from his mother’s care, and his permanency goal changed from reunification to adoption. IFC team encouraged his family to be involved in his life whenever possible through participation in school, medical, and social activities. The teen visited with maternal grandmother and the relationship help build a more positive relationship with mom. Mom started out with supervised visits and worked with DCF to eventually get unsupervised visits with her son. This led to the 14-year-old goal changing back to reunification in March of 2022 and him going home in June 2022.
Two siblings, ages 11 and 12, will reunite with their mother after entering foster care in January 2022. When the family was separated, our Family Support & Stabilization team supported mom with strengthening her parenting skills, making sure she had enough resources to support her family, and setting up safety plans for when her children came home. Meanwhile, the two siblings were staying in one of our loving, therapeutic foster homes. Now, both of our programs are working together to support this family’s transition as they reunify.
We are so glad to see these families reunify, and we wish them all a bright future together. We want to thank our staff and foster parents for they work they’ve done to support safe, smooth, joyful transitions for these youth and parents!