Trouble on the journey home: Reunification failures in foster care

We examined postreunification variables regarding parent characteristics, child characteristics, parent service utilization, child service utilization, family environment, and neighborhood environment as they relate to reunification failure. The sample for the study included foster children who, at reunification with their birth parents, ranged in age from 4–7 years. All participants were reunified with at least one parent. Among the variables found to significantly differentiate between failed and successful reunifications were parental utilization of substance abuse treatment, child utilization of special educational services, child utilization of individual, family, or group therapy, overall parenting skill level, appropriate use of discipline, and quality of neighborhood. We discuss the implications of these results for policies aimed at increasing the success rate of reunifications following foster care.