You asked about the Department of Children and Families’ (DCF) criteria for deciding whether a child in relative foster care can visit overnight with a biological parent.

The law requires DCF to ensure that a child placed in its custody or committed to it as abused or neglected can visit with his parents and siblings unless a court orders otherwise. Visits with parents must be as frequent and long as possible, based on the child’s best interests, including his age and developmental level, to ensure that the relationship is maintained. Information related to the factors to be considered in making these decisions must be included in the child’s treatment plan. If the commissioner determines that visits are not in the child’s best interests, or that the number, frequency, and duration of visits the child’s attorney or guardian ad litem ask for are not in those interests, she must include her reasons in the child’s treatment plan (PA 03-243, effective October 1, 2003).

DCF’s policy implementing this law follows it closely. Visitation appears to be the norm unless DCF believes it is not in the child’s best interest. In this case, DCF files a motion in court to suspend visitation. Even in these cases, DCF must permit visitation until the court acts on the motion (DCF Policy Manual § 34-10-7. 1).

In practice, before setting up an overnight visit the foster child’s DCF social worker would want to be sure that (1) the biological parent is working on the issues that caused the child to be removed from that parent, (2) the child would be safe, (3) the parent has an appropriate place to have the child overnight, and (4) the parent would provide appropriate supervision to the child during the visit. The worker would also need to assess whether or not the child was ready for such a visit.

Each situation is looked at on an individual basis and the decision to begin overnight visitation is made in conjunction with others, i. e. , the social worker’s supervisor, the attorney for the child, the child's therapist, etc. In most situations, an overnight visit is the natural progression of regular, ongoing visitation by the parents in the foster home, the DCF office, or a neutral site that has been successful for both the parent and the child. This type of assessment would occur in both relative and non-relative care.

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