[marikel]

Does anyone know how long in IN it takes for a child to be reunified with bio after unsupervised visits have been ordered?

[LibbyHawkins]

That is a question there is not a firm answer to.

It depends on a number of factors, such as

Are the parents continuing to do well with their case plan? Most likely they are still doing services.

Are they handling the visits well, can they take care of the child(ren)? How is the child(ren) handling the visits.

And on any given day, the caseworkers and the judge.

Ballpark, as little as a month , but that is just a guess. I once attended an inservice training, called " Foster to adopt - A Real Crapshoot", how right that is.

[Becki_in_IN]

Well, it was around 2 months with a couple of our cases and then there was our first foster dd whose mom had unsupervised visits for a year. She was playing the system though.

[po]

I had one girl that had supervised visits almost 4 years before they terminated parental rights. Everytime they were going to start having unsupervised visits the mother would do something to stop it. she would get picked up drunk, drive drunk and wreck or something that seemed almost deliberate. They never did go to unsupervised visits.

[marikel]

Thanks to everybody for their responses. This is a case where mom appears to finally be getting things together after a LONG history with the department. I was trying to prepare my mind if this child has to go back. It cracks me up that mom can do whatever she wants for years and kids are in the system, but can straighten up for a couple of weeks and we are all supposed to get excited for her give her the kids back light speed.

[sunshine31]

I am interested in anyones experience with the reunification process. Mainly knowing if most caseworkers give fair notice as to when the children will be returned to biological parent. Our foster children recently started unsupervised visits. Their first overnight was not monitored. The permancy hearing is in a couple weeks and the caseworker tells us she has no idea if they will be returned. I have a hard time believing this. The caseworker should have an idea what is going to happen. We have had plenty more problems with DCS in the county they are from so wanting to know if it would be normal to not know until the day they leave that they are leaving.

Thanks