The Messy, Beautiful Reality of Reunification

June is National Reunification Month, a time to celebrate families who have worked hard to overcome challenges and safely reunify with their children. It is also an opportunity to recognize the role foster families, caseworkers, and community supports play in helping families heal and reconnect.

During our foster parent training, we use the National Training and Development Curriculum to discuss what reunification looks like. One of the most common questions we hear is, "What percentage of children are reunified with their parents?" In 2025, more than half of the children in Colorado's foster care system were reunified with their biological families.

Within child welfare, reunification is the primary goal. Caseworkers often discuss it with a clinical understanding of the process, policies, and timelines. The expectation is that when safety concerns have been addressed and families have made necessary progress, children can safely return home.
While reunification is the goal of foster care, it is often one of the most difficult parts of the journey for foster parents.

As foster parent and Project 1.27 staff member Alysa Dudrey shared, "Reunification is brutal, and also, it's beautiful."

It can be heart-wrenching. It means saying goodbye to a child you have loved as your own, a child your children consider a sibling, a child you have comforted through hard nights and celebrated through important milestones. It can mean packing up a child's belongings, placing them by the front door, and hoping the transition will be as smooth as possible. It can mean watching tears fall as your family says goodbye and knowing a chapter that changed your life is coming to an end.

After saying goodbye to two little boys who had been in her home for 392 days, Alysa reflected, "The moment I've been dreading has come and gone. I'm simultaneously completely heartbroken and in awe of God's ability to show me the joy of a redemption story."

That tension, grief and joy existing together,is at the heart of reunification.

During training, we challenge foster families to extend grace and humility toward biological parents. Children often enter foster care because of generational trauma, neglect, addiction, mental health struggles, or circumstances that have left parents without the support and tools they needed. The same grace that God extends to us, He extends to biological families. We must believe that healing, restoration, and second chances are possible.

Reunification is not simply about returning a child home. Foster parents play a role in helping an entire family heal and reconnect. It involves supporting birth families, encouraging progress, and believing that change can happen even when the road is difficult.

There are moments of deep sorrow, but there are also moments when foster parents get a front-row seat to transformation. As Alysa wrote, "Reunification is watching a family thrive that wasn't before." It is seeing parents overcome obstacles, build healthy relationships, and create stability for their children. It is witnessing redemption take shape in real time.

This is why reunification is both painful and beautiful. Foster parents grieve the loss of a child from their home while celebrating the restoration of a family. Sometimes the reward comes in unexpected ways, a text message expressing gratitude, a photo showing a child thriving, or simply the knowledge that a family is whole again.

"It's getting texts of gratitude which you never expected, but which make it all worth it," Alysa shared.
When foster parents say yes to fostering, they are also saying yes to uncertainty and heartbreak. As Alysa writes, "Nobody can really prepare you for the brokenness you'll experience and witness." Yet she follows that difficult truth with another: "And still they were worth every part of it."

Perhaps that is the heart of reunification. It is messy, emotional, and often painful. Yet when it is possible and safe, it reflects the very mission of foster care.

As Alysa beautifully expressed, "Reunification is the wholeness of a family, redemption on display in its most effortless form." It is evidence that healing can happen, that families can overcome tremendous challenges, and that children can safely return home.

For foster parents, reunification requires sacrifice, trust, and a willingness to love children deeply while knowing they may not stay forever. Yet it is also one of the most beautiful parts of foster care because it reminds us that restoration is possible.

Or, as Alysa concluded, "Reunification is a front-row seat to what Jesus paid for: forgiveness, grace, and another chance at a better life."

By Marilyn Robinson, Director of Family Connections