What is Child-Parent Reunification?

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Reunification work is used to reunite a parent with his or her children.  Both mental health experts and Parent Coordinators engage in reunification work, with the mental health experts taking on the more severe of these cases; often referred to as “reunification therapy.”

In less severe cases, a parent coordinator is often tasked by the parents or a judge to implement and enforce a plan for moving parenting time from a current limited schedule to a more expansive schedule anticipated by the parents and the judge.

The primary goal of this work is to reestablish the relationship between the parent and his or her children so that the family can move forward with healthy child-parent relationships.

In severe cases, mental health professionals are tasked with assessing the disrupted child-parent relationship to move forward with therapy sessions with the child, parents and on occasion the family together as a group to treat the disrupted relationship to revive child-parent relationships; bringing them back to life (so to speak.)  Often a reunification therapist works with the family’s Parent Coordinator during this process.  The Parent Coordinator’s job during reunification therapy is to responsively mold the current parenting plan by the reunification therapist’s direction to assure everyone’s cooperation.

While in less severe cases reunification work may proceed rather quickly, in more severe cases, reunification therapy is often a more long-term family experience.