For a parent who hasn’t seen their child in person for months, there is no better feeling than the moment they are reunited.
Visitations, face-to-face between parents and children in our Foster Care & Adoption Program, resumed this week. When a child is in foster care, they have scheduled visitation times with their birth parents. Unfortunately, these visitations have not been possible since March due to the pandemic.
“A lot of our parents have become very emotional when seeing their kids for the first time,” said Samantha Urbino, Case Planner. “And the kids are always so excited to see them. It’s hard when they can’t see each other consistently. Many of them do not understand why they couldn’t see their parents.”
During this pause in visitations, many of families could only see each other through video chats. While this was the best possible solution in the fight against COVID-19 , it was still not ideal for many families.
“A lot of parents went from having eight hours a week with their kids to seeing them on video chat for 30 minutes,” Samantha said. “We have a lot of younger kids who don’t really sit in front of a screen for more than five minutes too well. As time went on, the biggest thing became communicating to the parents how things were progressing. There was a lot of anger and sadness at first, but that grew to an understanding. ”
Even though visitations are happening now, there are still safety measure in place for both the families and our staff. Everyone over the age of two needs to wear a mask. Anyone who enters the building needs to complete a COVID-19 screening and temperature check. Between families, our staff spends thirty minutes sanitizing the visitation room.
These adjustments are nothing, though, for the families who get to see each other for the first time in months. “As soon as the kids see their parents, they run up to give them a hug. The parents are often crying,” recalled Samantha. “It’s definitely been heartwarming.”