ABSTRACT
Working with questions relating to the issue of contact with birth families is an integral part of therapeutic work with children who are fostered, adopted, or in kinship care. The distinctions between the different forms of care are not always the most relevant factors for the child, birth family, and substitute carers, despite the differences in the legal framework that play a part in determining how much and whether contact occurs. In the last few years there has been an increasing amount of research attention paid to the question of the benefits to children of ongoing contact with their birth families, in an effort to underpin the significant change in attitude to and arrangements for post-placement contact. Perhaps inevitably, the situations most commonly presented to a child and adolescent mental health service working with this group of families are those where the question of contact has become problematic or challenging.
