COVID-19 Resources
Supportive Virtual Family Time Program
Background:
Anticipating the need for parents and children in foster or relative care to visit remotely, as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, Partners for Our Children (P4C) at the University of Washington created the Supportive Virtual Family Time program. The Program creates structure, guidance, and training for supervised visitation providers, with the goal of helping them facilitate positive remote supervised visits between parents and their children in out-of-home care.
The Supportive Virtual Family Time program builds upon the foundation and key principles of the Strive Supervised Visitation program and adds a new element, the Family Time Partnership Meeting, to help be a bridge to the parent(s) and foster/relative caregiver(s) as they make this transition. Strive is a parent education and support program that assists parents in preparing for high quality visits their children, and promotes child safety using a strengths-based, trauma-informed approach to help parents create a positive environment for nurturing their relationship with their child(ren) within the context of supervised visitation.
Overview:
As part of this Supportive Virtual Family Time program, supervised visitation providers are provided with structured support, guidance and training to:
Connect with the caseworker to prepare for remote supervised visits that will, to some extent, include both parent and foster/relative caregiver(s)
Prepare the parent(s) for positive remote supervised visitation with their children
Prepare the foster or relative caregiver(s) for how to support the child in their care in having positive remote supervised visitation with their parent(s)
Hold a virtual Family Time Partnership meeting between the parent(s) and foster/relative caregiver(s) prior to supervised visits taking place to plan and prepare for virtual visits by getting to know one another, setting expectations and agreements and plan for and provide some structure for the remote visits
Support the parent(s) and caregiver(s) in having positive and productive remote supervised visits and supervise the visits
Create a plan to debrief one-on-one with the parent(s) and the caregiver(s) to celebrate success and troubleshoot challenges.
Components of the Supportive Virtual Family Time Program:
A virtual meeting with the parent(s) before virtual family time takes place (30 minutes)
A virtual meeting with the foster or relative caregiver(s) before virtual family time takes place (30 minutes)
A family time partnership meeting between the parent(s), foster/relative caregiver(s) before virtual family time takes place (1 hour)
A debriefing with the parent(s) and the foster/relative caregiver(s) after the virtual family time takes place (15 minutes for each)
Products resulting from this work include:
A brief manualized curriculum for supervised visitation providers with suggested scripts and handouts for use in virtual meetings with caseworkers, parents, foster/relative caregivers, and during virtual supervised visits and debriefings
A training for supervised visitation providers that will be available for free online
Video clip to accompany the curriculum featuring a parent ally, foster caregiver, and visit supervisor demonstrating how to work together to make remote visits a success
Suggested developmentally tailored activities
Resource lists for providers, parents and foster/relative caregivers
Resource Links Regarding Virtual Family Time (rules, guidelines and tip sheets)
For more information please contact Susan Barkan at: barkas@uw.edu or Laura Orlando at: lorlando@uw.edu
Below is a List of Resources to Help During the COVID-19 Pandemic
List including 6 different resource sections located here.
Health Resources:
Altimerz Help Line at 800.272.3900 (24/7)
Family Resources:
Financial Resources:
Education Resources:
Nutrition:
Hunger Hotline: 314-726-5355, ext. 1
Self Care:
Child Welfare:
Justice System:
