ASSESSING PARENTING IN THE CONTEXT OF REUNIFICATION OF INFANTS/TODDLERS AND THEIR FAMILIES: HOW TO FACE THE CHALLENGES?

Since a substantial portion of infants and toddlers reenter care after reunification, the question of whether family reunification is feasible needs to be answered very cautiously. How parenting is assessed is of major importance in answering this question, but the quality of these assessments is often poor. With an eye to improving current practice, we conducted an integrative review, in which we analyzed the challenges related to the assessment of parenting vis-à-vis reunification and linked relevant knowledge from research with significant know-how from practice. The challenges appear to be embedded in the struggle to define (especially good enough) parenting and the complex context of child protection. As an answer to the challenges, the integrative review resulted in a framework of four key components required for sufficient parenting-assessment practice: (a) the use and development of expertise; and (b) providing families aiming for reunification with an intervention that is intensive, (c) flexible, and (d) organized as teamwork. Providing families with such an intervention gives them the opportunity to make substantial changes in their parenting and helps professionals assess the capacity of parents to grow to an acceptable level of caretaking for their child. Further implications for research and practice are discussed.