The City: Parents Seeking Return of Children First Must Forge Connections On Screens

“At the Bronx Defenders, which is working with the Bronx mother, efforts to reunify families are sometimes cut short by an agency’s insistence that a parent have a longer track record of supervised visits with caseworkers and sessions with therapists and counselors.

The pandemic has also had a significant impact on access to services — like mental health and substance use treatment — that parents are sometimes ordered to undergo to reunify with their children. Much of this counseling has also gone digital, or is conducted via phone, advocates said.

“We are desperately trying to reunify families like every which way because we know that the barriers to contact and inability to access phones, and technology, and the resources people need right now — that’s real and deep,” said Caitlin Becker, who runs the social work practice at the Bronx Defenders.”

Read the full article here