New research published by Foundations – What Works Centre for Children & Families shows that supporting parents whose children are in care before, during, and after the reunification process has significant positive outcomes for the whole family once reunited and can avoid children experiencing the trauma of re-entering care.
The review, carried out by the National Children’s Bureau on behalf of Foundations, found that families who received interventions that supported reunification had better outcomes than those who didn’t receive any support, with the clearest positive effects related to children remaining at home and avoiding re-entry to care.
Based on the findings of the research, a new Practice Guide on Reunification, commissioned by the Department for Education and published by Foundations, sets out principles and evidence-based recommendations for local authorities to provide effective support to families.
The research found that there is no ‘silver bullet’ and families need a personalised approach that takes into account their personal challenges and barriers with support tailored to the family situation. A positive, trusting relationship between the family and the practitioners was key to support being effective.
Support that can make a difference to children being able to return home safely includes many programmes within a local authority’s children’s services, such as Family Group Decision Making, family therapy, or appropriate specialist treatment and support for parents. However, these are not always used to support reunification.
Historically, lack of statutory national guidance on reunification in England and short-term funding pressures can constrain the potential of reunification support. Services are often forced to prioritise children’s immediate needs, safety, and wellbeing, which can leave little space for longer-term, whole-family support needed to tackle the issues that caused them to be separated from their child in the first place.
Crucially, insufficient support for families after a child returns home often leads to the same child being removed from their family and re-entering care after a short time, causing further trauma to the family and costing councils millions each year. A separate study by the NSPCC published in 2024, estimated that it costs £105,804 on average for each child who returns to care, compared to an average of just £7,857 to provide support to a family when the child returns home. Investing in higher quality support, as set out in the Reunification Practice Guide, can keep more children safely at home, and avoid care re-entry costs later down the line.
The Guide is published at a time when family support and helping children return home safely from care is a priority in reforms to children’s services. In June, the Department for Education announced supporting ‘enduring relationships’ for care-experienced children as a key priority, and Families First Partnership of £2.4bn funding will be used to reform children’s social care by shifting resources towards early intervention and prevention. While these programmes do not focus exclusively on parent-child reunification, they underpin the recognised importance of trusted, ongoing adult-child relationships in the lives of care-experienced children and young people.
Jo Casebourne, Chief Executive at Foundations, said:
“Reunification after a time in care is an incredibly complex and delicate process, but one that, when supported properly, can have a lasting positive impact on children and families.
“The Reunification Practice Guide comes at a crucial moment when both national policy and local practice are shifting to a focus on supporting families remain together safely, addressing the root causes of the challenges they face, and recognising the importance of continued, wraparound support to both children and their parents.
“This long-awaited guidance to local authorities is based on the best available evidence as well as conversations with children, parents, foster carers, and professionals, and it will enable senior leaders and practitioners to make sure more children can safely grow up with their parents.”
Dr Ciara Keenan, Assistant Director of Research and Evidence at the National Children’s Bureau, said:
“The evidence is clear that returning home from care is not a single moment, but a journey that requires careful, timely and sustained support. Our mixed-methods review looked beyond the headline numbers to understand what effective support needs to look and feel like for families. Crucially, we heard directly from children, young people, parents, foster carers and frontline practitioners, so the recommendations reflect both robust research and everyday reality. That combination matters, because it means this work can help local areas provide support that is feasible, compassionate and capable of giving families the best chance of staying safely together.”
Isabelle Trowler, Chief Social Worker for Children and Families, said:
“Reunification is one of the most important, and most challenging moments in the journey of both the child, their family, and the carers with whom the child has been living. This Practice Guide recognises the knowledge, skill, compassion, and persistence of those who help facilitate this transition. It sets out how to further strengthen practice so that children can return home safely and thrive within their families as well as build and maintain a network of enduring relationships with all those who matter to them. By focusing on planning, partnership, and sustained, evidence informed support, it will help practitioners achieve better, more lasting outcomes for the children and families they serve.”
Eavan Mckay, Policy and Public Affairs Manager at the NSPCC, said:
“It is crucial that both children and families receive the right support when a child returns home from care. However, for too long, a lack of national focus, guidance and resources has made it challenging for local authorities to effectively support families before and after a return home. This is vital to ensuring they can stay together, and a child doesn’t re-enter the care system unnecessarily.
“This new Practice Guide is a positive and welcomed step forward, bringing together the evidence on what works to support a child’s return home from care and demonstrating why investing in this support is not only the right thing to do for children and families, but also makes sound financial sense.”
For further information please contact Silvia Tadiello, Senior Communications Officer, at silvia.tadiello[at]foundations.org.uk.