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The actual trend in child protection area is to keep the children in the system for the shortest time as possible. Reunification with the biological family and adoption are the main purposes of the child protection specialists regarding the children and their best interest. Foster care is a preferred temporary measure, and foster parents/carers might be a reliable resource for sustaining the initiatives regarding the child. Biological parents should be involved more actively in the decisions made for the child’s best interest, and should be considered active stakeholders in the reunification process. By enhancing their parental capabilities and by offering them good practice models these parents can overcome the vulnerabilities that made them inefficient as parents in the past. Mainly, it is a matter of empowerment. The aim of this short qualitative investigation was to identify the main characteristics and vulnerable areas of the biological parents, where the specialists’ interventions might be appropriate in order to optimize the reunification process and the family functioning in the post-reunification period. The paper proposed a model for the reunification process and sustained the need of all the stakeholders to act together, as a team, for the best interest of the child in the reunification process with the biological family.
Keywords: reunification process, biological parents, stakeholders, users, psychological characteristics
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