The Children’s Institute’s Visit Coaching program is designed to bring parents back together with children who have been removed from their custody sooner and more safely. Rather than taking a judgmental approach to court-ordered supervised visitation, we take a family-centered approach, focusing on the family’s strengths.
We meet with parents before and after each visit. We listen to their concerns to find out what types of skills they need and what they need to practice. Then, during the visit, we coach them through practicing discipline, communication, and child development. After the visit is over, we talk to the parents about what went right and what didn’t, and prepare for the next time.
Our Visit Coaching program is based on the evidence-based Visit Coaching Model developed by Dr. Marty Beyers and focuses on helping parents rebuild the parent-child bond. Understanding that parental visitation is a primary predictor of reunification, our program works to:
- Recognize parent and child strengths
- Acknowledge the individual challenges for parents
- Provide a framework for parents to best use limited time with their child(ren)
- Provide parents with education and reassurance lacking in traditional visitation
- Enhance parental motivation for reunification
- Empower parents to affect positive changes in their child’s lives
- Document parent’s progress to assist with the determination of reunification by Juvenile Courts and Child Protective Services
Our highest priority is always on the safety and health of the children, so our experienced team assists parents in understanding their children’s changing needs and how to act on those needs. We also work to:
- Achieve more normalized family time between child(ren) and parent(s)
- Achieve increased flexibility in relation to the location and time of the visits
- Improve the quality of the visit and parent/child interaction
- Reduce the amount of time children are in foster care
- Enable quicker reunification with parents