Compassion: The Necessary Foundation to Reunify Families Involved in the Foster Care System

• Author: Vivek Sankaran,Katherine Markey
• Date: 01 October 2020
• Published date: 01 October 2020
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/fcre.12525

COMPASSION: THE NECESSARY FOUNDATION TO REUNIFY

FAMILIES INVOLVED IN THE FOSTER CARE SYSTEM

Katherine Markey and Vivek Sankaran

Compassion plays a critical role in ensuring that stakeholders can engage with, and support parents trying to reunify with

kids in the foster care system. This Article will explore the compassion crisis in foster care, will present the research docu-

menting the impact of compassion on engaging families, and will identify key steps stakeholders can take to incorporate

compassion into their work.

Practitioner’sKey Points:

To learn the research proving that compassion can help professionals engage with and support families.

To identify the ways in which the foster care system falls short on practicing compassion.

To explore practices professionals can incorporate into their work to practice compassion.

Keywords: Child Welfare; Compassion; Family Engagement; Foster Care; Parents.

Our client’s husband died suddenly of a heart attack, after three years of marriage. His sudden

death devastated her. She fell into a deep depression and self-medicated by drinking alcohol in copi-

ous amounts. She drank so much that she struggled to parent her five-year-old son. One day, after a

morning spent drinking, she passed out and was unaware that her son had wandered outside. The

police found the child at a local convenience store and called Child Protective Services, which filed

a petition in juvenile court requesting that the child be placed in foster care.

The court granted the request, put the boy in foster care, and required the child welfare agency

to provide services to reunify the family. Over the next year, the agency offered services to the cli-

ent –parenting classes, substance abuse treatment, a parent mentor, to name a few. But nothing

worked, and our client kept drinking. Roughly two years after the family had been separated, the

court terminated her parental rights. After we were appointed to represent her on appeal, we asked

her why she had given up. She said she felt hopeless and believed no one truly cared about her or

her pain.

Our client’s case highlights the enormous task child welfare professionals face. First, they must

determine whether the alleged abuse or neglect of a child requires the intervention of agencies

and courts. Next, if such intervention is necessary, they must develop a strategy to try to keep the

family together, and when separation must occur, to reunify children with their parents. Thus, our

work involves both a historical element –did something happen to necessitate intervention? And

aforward-looking element –how can we help the family address any concerns and heal? These

obligations are embedded in federal law, which requires child welfare agencies to make reason-

able efforts to both prevent the entry of children into foster care and to reunify a family if chil-

dren enter care.

1

In thinking about what reasonable efforts entail, professionals typically focus on which concrete

services to offer parents. Did the agency tailor the service plan to meet the needs of the family?

Corresponding: markeyk@umich.edu

FAMILY COURT REVIEW, Vol. 58 No. 4, October 2020 908–919, doi: 10.1111/fcre.12525

© 2020 Association of Family and Conciliation Courts