National guidance launched to improve reunification for children in care

New guidance commissioned by the Department for Education is calling on local authorities to strengthen support for children returning home from care, with evidence suggesting that sustained, tailored interventions can improve outcomes for families while reducing the likelihood of children re-entering care.

The new Practice Guide on Reunification, produced by Foundations – What Works Centre for Children & Families, sets out evidence-based recommendations designed to help councils plan and deliver effective support before, during and after a child returns home.

The guidance is underpinned by research from the National Children's Bureau, which found that families who received reunification support achieved better outcomes in areas including wellbeing, parent-child relationships and remaining safely together than more than six in ten families who did not receive such interventions.

The guide emphasises that there is no single approach that works for every family. Instead, it recommends personalised support that reflects families' individual circumstances, including their race, culture, language, mental health needs and any special educational needs and disabilities, alongside strong multi-agency working and long-term wraparound support.

It also highlights the importance of addressing wider challenges affecting families, such as financial hardship and insecure housing, while ensuring parents can access specialist treatment and support as early as possible after a child enters care.

The guidance comes as family support and safe reunification become an increasing focus of children's social care reform. The Department for Education recently identified supporting enduring relationships for care-experienced children as a key priority, while £2.4 billion of Families First Partnership funding is intended to shift children's social care towards earlier intervention and prevention.

The report warns that inadequate support after reunification often results in children returning to care, creating further trauma for families and placing additional pressure on local authority budgets.

It cites separate NSPCC-commissioned research published in 2024, which estimated that the average cost of a child returning to care is £105,804, compared with £7,857 to provide support to a family following reunification.

Historically, the report says, the absence of statutory national guidance, alongside short-term funding pressures and limited resources, has constrained local authorities' ability to provide consistent reunification support, with services often forced to prioritise immediate safeguarding concerns over longer-term family support.

Jo Casebourne, Chief Executive at Foundations, said: "Reunification after a time in care is an incredibly complex and delicate process, but one that, when supported properly, can have a lasting positive impact on children and families.

"The Reunification Practice Guide comes at a crucial moment when both national policy and local practice are shifting to a focus on supporting families remain together safely, addressing the root causes of the challenges they face, and recognising the importance of continued, wraparound support to both children and their parents.

"This long-awaited guidance to local authorities is based on the best available evidence as well as conversations with children, parents, foster carers, and professionals, and it will enable senior leaders and practitioners to make sure more children can safely grow up with their parents."

Researchers found that trusting relationships between practitioners and families were central to successful reunification, while interventions such as Family Group Decision Making, family therapy and specialist support for parents can all contribute to children remaining safely at home but are not consistently used for reunification.

Dr Ciara Keenan, Assistant Director of Research and Evidence at the National Children's Bureau, said: "The evidence is clear that returning home from care is not a single moment, but a journey that requires careful, timely and sustained support. Our mixed-methods review looked beyond the headline numbers to understand what effective support needs to look and feel like for families. Crucially, we heard directly from children, young people, parents, foster carers and frontline practitioners, so the recommendations reflect both robust research and everyday reality. That combination matters, because it means this work can help local areas provide support that is feasible, compassionate and capable of giving families the best chance of staying safely together."

The Practice Guide also recommends that local authorities develop clear reunification policies, invest in staff training and monitoring, and ensure that children, young people and families play a meaningful role in shaping services.

Isabelle Trowler, Chief Social Worker for Children and Families, said: "Reunification is one of the most important, and most challenging moments in the journey of both the child, their family, and the carers with whom the child has been living. This Practice Guide recognises the knowledge, skill, compassion, and persistence of those who help facilitate this transition. It sets out how to further strengthen practice so that children can return home safely and thrive within their families as well as build and maintain a network of enduring relationships with all those who matter to them. By focusing on planning, partnership, and sustained, evidence informed support, it will help practitioners achieve better, more lasting outcomes for the children and families they serve."

Welcoming the publication, the NSPCC said the guidance addressed longstanding gaps in national policy and support for reunification.

Eavan Mckay, Policy and Public Affairs Manager at the NSPCC, said: "It is crucial that both children and families receive the right support when a child returns home from care. However, for too long, a lack of national focus, guidance and resources has made it challenging for local authorities to effectively support families before and after a return home. This is vital to ensuring they can stay together, and a child doesn’t re-enter the care system unnecessarily.

"This new Practice Guide is a positive and welcomed step forward, bringing together the evidence on what works to support a child’s return home from care and demonstrating why investing in this support is not only the right thing to do for children and families, but also makes sound financial sense."