Supporting meaningful contact in adoption, kinship care and foster care

Maintaining relationships for children in care is a complex and often emotive issue.

Whether through adoption, kinship care, or fostering, decisions about contact have implications for a child's sense of identity, belonging, and emotional wellbeing. Yet, too often, planning for contact is inconsistent, with decisions shaped by resources, perceptions of risk, or historical practices, rather than a child-centred approach.

Staying in touch: Contact after adoption is a Research in Practice resource hub providing valuable guidance and tools for practitioners navigating these challenges. Whilst designed with adoption in mind, the resources are also relevant across other placements, for all professionals who are involved in helping children keep in touch with people who are important to them.

A series of upcoming interactive workshops will build on these resources, exploring the key stages of planning contact, and the main challenges and enablers in this area of work.

Evidence-informed contact planning

The hub resources are underpinned by the Contact: Making good decisions for children in public law briefing. This highlights how arrangements for staying in touch with birth relatives and other important people can mitigate loss, provide reassurance and connection to family history, culture and religion. However, contact that is poorly managed or inadequately resourced can be distressing, reinforcing trauma or disrupting relationship building.

The research emphasises the need for nuanced, evidence-based planning that considers:

• The child’s evolving needs, wishes, and feelings.
• The purpose of contact, including emotional security and identity formation.
• The quality of relationships, rather than simply the frequency or type of contact.
• The support available for all parties, ensuring safe and positive experiences.

Staying in touch plans should involve careful analytic assessment of how contact with family members and other important people can contribute to a child's short and long-term wellbeing. The briefing highlights the importance of contact being purposeful, flexible and tailored to individual circumstances.

Why this matters

Whilst adoption brings unique considerations, many of the themes around staying in touch apply to children with other placement orders. For children in long-term care, sibling relationships, connections with birth relatives, and even digital contact require thoughtful planning.

The resources highlight that when planning contact, professionals must consider not just practical arrangements but the emotional and psychological impact on the child. It is not simply about maintaining a connection but ensuring that connection is meaningful, safe and contributes positively to the child's development.

Practical tools

A key feature of the hub is the planning tool and templates that aim to support practitioners to structure contact planning discussions and decision-making. These resources:

• Provide a framework for assessing what type of contact is in a child’s best interests.
• Support collaborative planning with children, birth families, and adoptive parents or foster carers.
• Offer practical templates to guide structured planning, ensuring that staying in touch plans are adaptable as children’s needs change over time.

The planning tool is designed to help professionals think critically about staying in touch arrangements. It sets out a six-step approach for practitioners to consider when planning and reviewing keeping in touch arrangements:

The planning tool and templates also support thinking about the purpose of keeping in touch and the strengths and challenges related to each relationship. There are two worked examples illustrating how decisions can be tailored to individual children’s circumstances. These examples provide useful case studies to guide social workers and other professionals through real-world application of the framework.

Children need to be at the centre of all contact plans and their wishes and feelings need to be fully considered, regardless of whether or not they are able to verbalise these. These resources provide a structured yet adaptable approach, ensuring that contact remains purposeful and responsive to children’s needs over time.