Family reunification is the preferred stability objective in most cases where a child is placed in care.
Family reunification is a planned and timely process of safely returning a child to the care of a parent or parents, with a view to enduring reunification.
The best interests principles in the CYFA are clear about ‘the need to give the widest possible protection and assistance to the parent and child’ and ‘the desirability, when a child is removed from the care of their parent, to plan the reunification of the child with their parent’.
Strong partnership, early planning and intensive efforts with the family and other professionals are required to maximise opportunities for safe, timely and sustainable reunification.
This advice addresses practice issues relating to engaging the family, undertaking case planning and reviewing the risk assessment for reunification using professional judgement, research and practice-based knowledge.
It is important to view family reunification as a process rather than a placement event (Brydon, 2004). The process includes maintaining family relationships while children are in short-term care, careful planning and sustained support after reunification (Child Welfare Information Gateway, 2006). Wulczyn (2004, p. 99) highlights this point in the statement that:
‘Reunifying a child with his or her birth parents is not a one-time event. Rather, it is a process involving the reintegration of the child into a family environment that may have changed significantly from the environment the child left’.
Reunification requires services and supports from when a child first enters care and beyond the child’s return home, to meet the child’s and their family’s needs.
Strong engagement and collaboration with the family and the service providers is necessary in order to address the protective concerns to make the process of reunification possible.
Reunification planning is possible when risks, strengths, safety and protection are dynamically reviewed. Regular review of the risk assessment is necessary to consider whether decisions made as part of previous risk assessments and planning remain in the child’s best interests.
Reunification exists within the range of stability objectives from family preservation aiming at preventing placement, through to permanent or long-term care. Any of the intervention and planning options may have a place for each child and their family, depending on their specific qualities, needs and circumstances (Tilbury & Osmond, 2006), with the goal of providing stability in care arrangements for children in as timely a way as is consistent with their best interests.
For most children in care, family reunification can be achieved in a timely way and is the preferred outcome. Evidence indicates that most children who enter care are reunified with their parents in less than a year.
The child’s best interests and assessment of the child’s developmental needs, present and future risk of harm and parental capability, should be at the core of all decision making for family preservation, family reunification, or permanent or long-term care.
For advice on risk assessment in the context of case planning, see Risk assessment – advice
For advice on determining whether reunification is in the child’s best interests, see Identifying and achieving the stability objective.
Aboriginal children
For specific guidance about supporting reunification for Aboriginal children, see Aboriginal children policy.
See Case planning
Appropriate services and supports
A major component of case practice is identifying and coordinating services and supports that are responsive to the child and families’ particular needs.
Appropriate therapeutic and family services can support a child’s recovery and wellbeing in care, strengthen families in culturally appropriate ways, and facilitate successful and sustainable family reunification (Maluccio et al., 1993; Wise, 2000).
The types of services and supports required for each child and their family will vary depending on the protective concerns that led to the child’s removal, any relevant conditions that are included on the interim accommodation order or protection order and ongoing assessment and planning.
When a stability objective of family reunification is determined, practitioners must consider connecting the family to the Victorian and Aboriginal Family Preservation and Reunification Response to provide the family intensive and tailored therapeutic intervention and the best possible support in achieving family reunification.
Other purposeful and appropriate services and supports must be regularly reviewed to reflect the family’s needs, potential and progress towards the stability objective of family reunification. Planning for services and supports should occur as early as possible after the child’s placement in care.
Services should be practical and comprehensive so as to address all relevant aspects of family life (Child Welfare Information Gateway, 2006). The most effective intervention involves all members of the family and addresses not only parenting skills but also the child’s developmental needs, parent-child interactions and a range of life competencies such as communication, problem solving and behaviour management (Child Welfare Information Gateway, 2006; Ainsworth, 2001).
The literature suggests that services should be timely, targeted and culturally competent to meet the individualised needs of children and families.
The types of services and supports that can assist families include:
- Concrete services, to deal with needs related to poverty such as food, transportation, financial assistance, housing and utilities (Child Welfare Information Gateway, 2006; Frederico et al., 2006)
- Universal services, that support children’s inclusion in kindergarten and school, and link families to other universal services such as maternal and child health services and medical services
- Therapeutic or counselling services, to work through issues of trauma and compromised parent-child relationships (Miller, 2007b; Tilbury & Osmond, 2006)
- Home based services, with the intensity and duration families need, that provide case work, parenting and life skills education, family focused treatment and assistance in accessing community resources (Child Welfare Information Gateway, 2006)
- Substance abuse services, with intensive case management, programs tailored for women and children, and social support (Child Welfare Information Gateway, 2006).
- Family violence, mental health or disability services where these issues are adversely affecting parenting capacity.
- Post reunification services, that continue to enhance parenting skills, address the child’s changing developmental needs and link families to community support. Specific post reunification services that contribute to positive outcomes for families include concrete services, universal services, home based services, substance abuse services and mental health or counselling services (Child Welfare Information Gateway, 2006; Jackson 1997).
Usually a combination of ‘soft’ services such as counselling and parent education, and ‘hard’ services such as childcare and respite care, are required as parents need both knowledge and tangible resources to be able to provide developmentally appropriate care for their child (Maluccio et al., 1993). Informal practical and emotional support from extended family members, friends, neighbours and community is also highly beneficial for families (O’Neill, 2000; Maluccio et al., 1993). It is critical that the support of services, extended family and significant others is sustained beyond the child’s return home so as to ameliorate concerns and prevent re-entry to care (Ainsworth & Maluccio, 1998; Jackson, 1997).
Therapeutic supports should be considered for all children and families and may look different for each child and circumstance. For example, children who have disclosed sexual abuse may benefit from specialist therapeutic supports and should be linked with these as early as possible. Family therapy approaches may support work toward reunification or benefit children and sibling groups while not residing with their parent as well as siblings not residing in the same home. Children and young people involved with Child Protection may benefit from play or creative or expressive art therapies to support their individual needs. Consideration should be given to the timing and readiness when introducing therapeutic supports and how this work will be supported by parents, other family members or carers and the broader care team as progress is made toward reunification.
Communication and consultation with the service system partners is critical to formulating and enacting the case plan, including planning and tracking progress towards reunification. This group of professionals collaborating, sharing information and contributing to planning is the care team. Sometimes and particularly when planning for and working towards reunification, the care team will comprise the child’s caregiver, parents and other important members of their network. Communication within the care team needs to be frequent and regular, and the approach should not rely only on case conferences, but include regular care team meetings, phone and online communication and email contact also. There needs to be a clearly designated person in the care team who will take responsibility for initiating and coordinating relevant meetings.
It is particularly important that carers are involved as active partners in the family reunification and decision-making processes as promoted in the decision-making principles. Carers have a unique role in facilitating reunification given their direct care and intimate knowledge of the child. The literature discusses the critical role that carers play in promoting the child’s development and supporting both the child’s contact with their family and the parents through mentoring. The development of a positive relationship between carers and parents may prevent children from experiencing the stress of divided loyalties and position carers to play a supportive role after reunification (Child Welfare Information Gateway, 2006).
Sibling reunification
Sibling relationships may be the most enduring relationships a child experiences in their lifetime.
Where siblings have been placed in care but do not reside in the same home it will be critical to provide opportunities for them to continue to grow, develop and maintain healthy, supportive and safe sibling relationships. If siblings are not placed in care together, reunification needs to be considered and advocated as a matter of urgency through case planning, where this is their best interests.
Sibling reunification can be considered separately to reunification to parental care. Should sibling reunification not be recommended, or initially safe to plan for, record the rationale, review regularly and work toward safe sibling reunification. Consider therapeutic supports that may be necessary and if sibling contact can be a step toward reunifying siblings. It may be possible for siblings to be reunified in advance of returning to parental care.
Where sibling reunification is recommended, but not immediately possible, sibling contact needs to be planned for and prioritised through case planning processes and care teams, cognisant of children and young people’s views and wishes, and their best interests. Sibling contact may be able to occur flexibly and in less formal settings, such as playdates, a regular meal together, through joint visits with family and extended family, participating in shared extracurricular activities, phone and online communication or overnight sleepovers. Older siblings may be able to connect with each other directly.
In some circumstances it may be necessary for a care team to consider a child’s relationship or connection with estranged siblings or siblings not yet known to them. Any contact in such circumstances requires careful consideration for all parties who may be involved, including the best interests of each child.
Contact
See Contact
Working with the child, family, community and other professionals to enact the case plan is essential to achieving a sustainable stability objective for the child. The actions table and cultural plan (for Aboriginal children) are critical to enacting the case plan. It is a family-friendly document that can be used to discuss progress or identify where further supports are needed to achieve goals. Reviewing and updating the actions table does not require a review of the case plan; the actions table can and should be a live working document.
It is good practice to enact case plans in a collaborative and transparent way, inclusive of all the relevant members of the network around the child and family. Children’s safety is a shared responsibility and through the process of enacting a case plan, the involvement of a network can provide solutions for safety and care that might not have been possible without involvement. Effective care teams are an essential element of enacting a case plan. Care teams are required for children in care and should also be considered for families who are working with Child Protection by agreement.
Timeframes
Evidence based studies show that family reunification is much more likely to occur earlier rather than later in a child’s placement in care, particularly the first year.
The most recent Victorian child protection data published by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare shows that reunification is achieved within six months for around a half of children who are reunified, with the majority reunified within 12 months. A smaller proportion of children are reunified after more than two years in care (AIHW, 2025). Shorter timeframes will usually be preferable for supporting a family to work towards reunification, although flexibility is required to recognise the complexity of family experiences and that for some children reunification can be in their best interests even after an extended period in care. Timely decision-making and action that is responsive to children’s developmental needs is very important.
Calculating the period of a family reunification order
See Counting time in out-of-home care
Confirming reunification by changing the nature of an order
See Orders
Regular reviews
Regular visits with the child and parents and contact with significant others and professionals are essential ways of assessing and planning for the child’s safety and development, and their care and wellbeing. Regular reflection on the outcomes of tasks and progress towards the stability objective is an important collaborative mechanism to monitor the family’s progress both before and after family reunification. A case plan review may also be required at any stage where there are significant developments or changes in the child or parents’ circumstances. When changing to the stability objective and making other significant decisions, the child’s best interests is always the paramount consideration.
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Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, Data tables: Child protection 2023–24: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children, Table 10.17, https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/child-protection/child-protection-australia-2023-24/data, accessed 25 February 2026
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