Improving the Lives of Children in Foster Care: The Impact of Supervised Visitation*

Our purpose was to test a model explaining the quality of attachment of 123 children in foster care receiving supervised visitation with their biological parents. The results indicated that for families in which reunification is a goal, children who have more consistent and frequent contact with their biological parents have stronger attachments than children who have less contact. In addition, relationships between attachment and indicators of adjustment were examined. Children with higher levels of attachment had fewer behavioral problems, were less likely to take psychiatric medication, and were less likely to be termed “developmentally delayed” than were children with negative levels of attachment. Implications of these findings for case workers and other family service providers are discussed.