Information and communication technology use among children separated from one or both parents: A scoping review

• Published date: 01 April 2023
• Author: Amandine Baude,Gaël Henaff,Émilie Potin,Audrey Bourassa,Marie‐Christine Saint‐Jacques,Julie Noël
• Date: 01 April 2023
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/fare.12831

RESEARCH

Information and communication technology use

among children separated from one or both parents:

A scoping review

Amandine Baude

1

|Gaël Henaff

2

|

Emilie Potin

2

|

Audrey Bourassa

3

|Marie-Christine Saint-Jacques

3

|Julie Noël

4

1

Laboratoire de Psychologie Labpsy,

Bordeaux University, Bordeaux, France

2

Laboratoire interdisciplinaire de recherche sur

les innovations soci

Etales, University of

Rennes, Rennes, France

3

Department of Social Work, Laval

University, Quebec, Canada

4

Department of Social Work, Sherbrooke

University, Quebec, Canada

Correspondence

Amandine Baude, Facult

E de Psychologie,

Laboratoire de Psychologie LabPsy,

Universit

E de Bordeaux, 3 ter, Place de la

Victoire, 33076 Bordeaux, France.

Email: amandine.baude.1@ulaval.ca

Abstract

Background: The development and diversification of infor-

mation and communication technology (ICT) are chang-

ing the way family members communicate with each

other, creating new opportunities for interaction. When

children and parents do not live together on a day-to-day

basis, these technologies may represent privileged means

to keep in touch and maintain a relationship.

Objective: This article aims to review the literature on the

use of ICT among children separated from one or both

parents, paying particular attention to two contexts:

parental separation and foster care.

Method: A scoping review was conducted using the Arksey

and O’Malley (2005) framework and the PRISMA Exten-

sion for Scoping Reviews guidelines (Tricco et al., 2018).

The data were analyzed using thematic analysis.

Results: Of the 847 references identified, 11 were selected

(six related to parental separation and five related to foster

care). The literature dated from 1997 to 2020 and was par-

ticularly sparse and heterogeneous (e.g., the definition of

ICT and characteristics of participants). Three topics

emerged: (a) ICT practices and usage patterns, (b) ICT

practices: opportunities and issues, and (c) sociolegal sup-

port issues.

Implication: This study highlights the need for all legal and

psychosocial actors to consider the place of digital technol-

ogy in family relationships.

KEYWORDS

foster care, information and communication technologies, parent–child

contact, parental separation, scoping review

Received: 31 May 2022Revised: 17 December 2022Accepted: 17 December 2022

DOI: 10.1111/fare.12831

© 2023 National Council on Family Relations.

Family Relations. 2023;72:601–620. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/fare 601

Information and communications technologies (ICT) is an umbrella term that refers to the tech-

nological tools—from hardware to software—used to communicate, share information, and

maintain social relationships. About 30 years ago, face-to-face, mail, or landline telephone were

the primary modes of communication (Carvalho et al., 2015). Then, in the late 1990s and early

2000s, we witnessed the rise of email and mobile telephony (limited to calling and texting capa-

bilities). A few years later, the Internet and social networks (e.g., Instagram, TikTok, Twitter,

and Facebook) gained popularity. Today, the emergence and democratization of new hardware

technologies, such as smartphones and tablets, offer access to the Internet anytime and

anywhere.

Today’s young people have grown up in a digital world and spend considerable time online,

earning them the nickname “digital natives”(Prensky, 2001). According to the Pew Research

Internet Center, 95% of United States adolescents owned or had access to a smartphone in 2018

(Anderson & Jiang, 2018). A similar picture is emerging in Europe, as well as in Canada

(Bourget et al., 2020; Suter et al., 2018). The development and diversification of ICTs have

impacted not only the young people’s lives but also their families by creating new opportunities

for interaction.

Although a variety of communication tools appear now easily accessible, research on the

use of ICT by children separated from one or both parents remains scarce. However, many

questions have been raised about the effectiveness of virtual communication after child place-

ment or parental separation and how ICT can best be used to support the maintenance of fam-

ily relationships (Birnbaum, 2020; Sage & Jackson, 2022).

BACKGROUND

In Western countries, a significant proportion of young people (children and adolescents) do

not spend their daily lives with their father or mother (Lapinte & Buisson, 2017; Statistics

Canada, 2016). They live with their other parent, a family member or in foster care part of the

time. These living arrangements are either because they have been placed in care by child pro-

tection services or because they live with the custodial parent after a parental separation.

From a sociolegal perspective, maintaining the parent–child relationship after placement or

parental separation is a major challenge (Baude et al., 2016; Potin, Henaff, & Trellu, 2018) and

often involves face-to-face contact, whether supervised or unsupervised (Sen, 2018; Simpson,

2019). In-person parent–child contact is key to preserving the child’s connection to family post-

separation (Elam et al., 2019) and is especially crucial in the case of children in foster care

whose permanency plan is to return to the family home (Blakeslee & Best, 2019; McWey &

Cui, 2017). To bridge the gap created by separation between children and their parent(s), ICTs

also offer young people a new way to keep in touch with their parent(s). Using such communi-

cation tools may have risen over the past 2 years owing to the COVID-19 health crisis and mea-

sures implemented by authorities to restrict or even prohibit movement and contact between

people (Lessard, 2020; Sistovaris et al., 2020). In Québec, for example, the Minister of Health

and Social Services signed a Ministerial Order temporarily suspending the access rights of par-

ents with children in foster care (Marin, 2020). At the same time, the government encouraged

child protection services and foster families to implement other means of maintaining parent–

child contact, primarily via ICT (Collings et al., 2020; Singer & Brodzinsky, 2020).

The growth of virtual communication raises important questions regarding the continuity

and quality of parent–child relationships, children’s well-being and separation or placement

arrangements (Macdonald et al., 2017; Saini et al., 2013; Simpson, 2019). Factors found to sup-

port ICT use in foster care or parental separation situations include many young people’s desire

to maintain ties with their parents, even if they have vulnerabilities (Beaudry et al., 2004; Potin,

Henaff, Trellu, & Sorin, 2018). In formal arrangements where contact is normally scheduled in

602 FAMILY RELATIONS