• Children's drawing of a family holding hands

    “Our Family Time Coaches were very supportive and down-to-earth and easy to talk to. I had a good relationship with both my coaches. They were helpful; they made suggestions rather than coming on too strong. They were positive. Sometimes, it’s not what you do but the way you do it.”

  • Children's drawing of a family playing with toys

    “My Family Time Coach is absolutely amazing. I don’t know if I would have made it through the year without her. She offered support. She pushed me to do what I needed to do. Everyone judged me, but she didn’t. She made me feel good about myself. She made suggestions and it didn’t feel like she was attacking me.”

  • Children's drawing of a family of four

    “It was amazing. I was really nervous. My Family Time Coach talked me through it before so I wasn’t so emotional. We prepped for that first visit and that gave me the strength to be strong for them. She helped me to be repetitious with a stern voice, to not give in, to be consistent with times, to get a good routine in place. That worked and things were really, really good. We went from having Coach with us to it being just me with the kids. My kids miss her. They looked at her as my friend and that she brought out the better out of me.”

  • Children's drawing of a family of four

    “Through this process, I have opened my eyes to the flaws I had. It was the hardest thing I ever had to do.”

Supporting Parents to Take Charge of their Family Time

Visit Coaching/Family Time Coaching helps families in foster care enjoy their time together.

 
 

In traditional supervised visits parents struggle to meet their children’s needs for a variety of reasons and caseworkers are frustrated that visits are often not informative about reunification.

Parents of children in care are proud to meet the developmental, separation-related and safety needs of their children with Visit Coaching/Family Time Coaching.

Parents are motivated by satisfying and nurturing time with their children to work steadily toward reunification.

Trained visit coaches develop strong relationships with parents as they listen to parents and support attunement to their children.

Parents’ quotes about the benefits of Visit Coaching/Family Time Coaching and how they meet their children’s needs and being reunified reflect these honest, non-judgmental relationships.

Visit Coaching is also known as Family Time Coaching or Family Visit Coaching; the terms are used interchangeably. We do not use the term “visitation” because parents view it so negatively. Family Time is a strengths-based description of the time children enjoy with their family.

 

Parent Testimonials

Testimonials

I definitely learned things…how to deal with my son’s behaviors, and my daughter’s behaviors. Different ways of looking at it…how to show better attention to them and listen to them and set limits.

Patience! I can deal with problems head-on now and not show my emotions so that it spills out onto the kids.

I smartened up and my main focus now is my son. I’m more focused and motivated and life has completely turned around. It was the reality check I needed.

With my Family Time Coach, I could be myself, not feel judged.

I grew as a parent. Yes, I did. Coaching got me to let go of everything and focus on my child.

I found that what I knew I always had was with me. She reassured me; she supported me. It made a huge difference for me.

Through this process, I have opened my eyes to the flaws I had. It was the hardest thing I ever had to do.

I didn’t feel less than. My Family Time Coach didn’t patronize me. It was a perfect balance. The pre and post meetings were really helpful.

My Family Time Coach was really nice. She explains things and asks me how I want to do things. She’s there for me. I love her. She’s awesome.

Making gingerbread houses was hard and I was getting frustrated. The coach could tell I was frustrated and she reminded me to interact at his age level and so we built a gingerbread truck. It was great and the coach said, ‘I’m proud of you’.

I learned that you set your own feelings aside and focus on the child.

My Family Time Coach let me talk about how hard this was for me and helped me be a better mother. She made suggestions and 9 out of 10 times, it worked. She let me explain from my point of view and she was helpful with resources. She made me feel comfortable.

I learned breathing—it’s okay to sit and breathe and count. I learned to be prepared before something happens. Plan ahead. As a mom whose child is in custody, you want to do everything, fit everything into the time you have together, but that overwhelms the kid.

I learned to listen to him—hear what he says—he’s a person and he has opinions and is entitled as long as it’s appropriate.

I definitely learned how to keep patient. I had just put the last of the formula in the bottle and it got knocked over. Normally, I would have exploded but I just told myself, ‘breathe, just breathe” and I calmed down and my coach helped me clean up the mess.

I learned to multi-task between the kids; to give my daughter something to do for the baby.

I felt like my coach was really focused on me getting what I needed out of it and also what she noticed we needed. She had everyone’s overall experience in mind.

For me, it was reinforcement of my own personal goals that someone trained in coaching parents would say that I was doing a good job. She would also say when she noticed things that I could do in a different way.

A couple of times when the children were struggling, my coach waited until after the visit and then told me, ‘You did everything you were supposed to do. Mistakes are going to happen. It’s to be expected.’ I was beating myself up. I felt they expected everything had to go perfect and my coach made me just feel like a human being.