Temporary in Law, Permanent in Practice? Is Foster Care Supporting Family Reunification?
By Dr Graziella Darmanin Cricchiola - Senior Associate
Maltese law defines fostering as temporary in nature. The idea is that a child is placed in a safe and stable environment while the biological parents work on the difficulties that led to the child being removed from their care. Where those difficulties are successfully addressed, the child should ultimately be reunited with their biological family. But what happens in the meantime?
While researching the Maltese foster care system for my Master’s dissertation, one issue particularly stood out to me, the longer a child remains in foster care, the more difficult reuniting with his biological parents may become.
Biological parents are generally expected to follow a care plan and address the concerns that led to their child being placed in care. Of course, not every parent engages with this process in the same way. Some genuinely want to change and actively work towards reunification, while others repeatedly fail to engage.
The question is whether our system sufficiently recognises this difference and, where progress is being made, actively works towards bringing the family back together. My research raised concerns that a parent’s willingness and efforts to change may not always be sufficiently reflected in the way contact is structured. This becomes particularly important when resources are already limited.
Supervised access visits are one example. They play an important role in maintaining the relationship between children placed in foster care and their biological parents. However, limited resources may result in parents waiting for such a service to become available. Where resources are limited, a one size fits all approach may also fail to sufficiently recognise those parents who are actively engaging and working towards reunification.
But simply providing contact may not be enough.
One professional I interviewed explained that, where reunification is the goal, visits could be far more beneficial if trained professionals or therapists were present not simply to observe, but to guide, prompt and encourage interaction between parent and child.
Contact should not only be about watching whether something goes wrong. It should also be an opportunity to help something go right.
What about alienating behaviours?
Another issue emerging from my research was the possibility of alienating behaviours within foster care. This does not necessarily mean that anyone is deliberately attempting to turn a child against their biological parents. Alienation can be far more subtle.
Children may find themselves caught between two families, developing a strong attachment to their foster carers while trying to maintain a relationship with their biological parents. Foster carers themselves face a difficult task, providing a child with love and security, while supporting the possibility that the child may eventually return to their biological family.
When contact is delayed, restricted or not meaningfully supported, the biological parents’ relationship may gradually weaken while the child's attachment to the foster carers grows stronger.
This brings me back to the question, if fostering is temporary in law, are we doing enough from the initial steps to ensure that it does not become permanent simply through the course of time?
Protecting the child must always remain at the centre of the process. But where reunification remains possible, the system should not simply preserve contact with the biological family. It should actively support that relationship so that reunification remains a genuine possibility.
