Systemic family engagement to preserve and reunify families: Lessons from the U.S. and Chile

Family engagement is key to preserving and reunifying child-welfare involved families. Yet, despite legislation that requires child welfare agencies to make “reasonable efforts” in the United States (U.S.) and to restitute a child’s right to live with their family in Chile, there continue to be deficiencies to meaningfully engaging families. Via historical marginalization and exclusion of some groups, we argue that the state has created and perpetuated conditions that result in racial, socioeconomic, and geospatial disparities among child welfare decision-making points including substantiations, foster care entries, and reunifications. Using the U.S. and Chile as two case examples, we critically analyze the emergence and evolution of child welfare in conjunction with relevant institutional and systemic policies that disadvantage entire groups or communities and then continue to perpetuate emotional neglect once children are in care. Through this analysis, we argue that there is a need to address structural barriers that impede family engagement, preservation, and reunification, and structural factors that lead to the root causes of child maltreatment referrals. As more federal policies shift to preventing child maltreatment, we propose a multilevel, structural approach to identify community strengths and needs that could better support family preservation and reunification, and build community-wide resilience and wellbeing, while also advocating for structural changes to policies and practices that could enhance equity.