DCS allows return to virtual visits for kids

In response to spiking cases of COVID-19, the state’s child-welfare agency will allow children in foster care to have virtual visits with their parents rather than travel out of their foster home for an in-person visit.

It’s a shift back to the Department of Child Safety’s initial response to the new coronavirus pandemic — but only in certain circumstances and only for the next three weeks.

In a letter to foster parents, DCS Director Mike Faust noted that COVID-19 has spread “significantly” in the last month. Cases have grown 273% since June 1, when the agency directed families to resume in-person visits. Before then, visits between children and their parents separated due to allegations of neglect and abuse had been on a nearly three-month hiatus.

Now, those family visits could go either way.

Family visits are considered vital to maintaining and strengthening the bond between parent and child and are a key part of the process of reunifying families — which is most often the stated goal in a case where the state takes custody of a child.

But in the early stages of the virus, with fears mounting among foster parents that children could pick up the virus during in-person visits and then spread it to their foster homes, the agency switched to virtual visits.

Now, with Arizona approaching 80,000 positive cases and with about a dozen foster children with the virus, Faust said the agency needs some flexibility. In his letter to foster parents dated Monday, Faust outlined various circumstances in which they could seek a return to virtual visits. Such requests will be considered by DCS supervisors, with a hoped-for response time of two to four days.

The situations where virtual visits may be considered include:

• When anyone in the foster home, the biological parent home or the child himself is immunocompromised.

• For anyone exposed to a person with a positive COVID-19 case. That exposure must be reported to the medicalcare program linked to the child-welfare system.

• For birth parents who are living in congregate-care settings, such as a halfway house or group home.

• When either birth parents or foster

“I would think with physically distancing, with masking, visits can continue and would be encouraged.” Gov. Doug Ducey

parents work in areas with a high risk of COVID infection, such as medical personnel and first responders.

• If a birth parent brings other parties to an in-person visit, raising the risk of infection.

The exemptions are in place through July 19, although DCS indicated it will monitor circumstances and make adjustments as needed.

Faust’s letter came after Gov. Doug Ducey on Monday issued an executive order closing bars, gyms, theaters, water parks and river tubing through July 27. The order also restricts gatherings of more than 50 people.

On Monday, Ducey said he would defer to the agency’s direction but sug

gested there are safeguards in place to ensure in-person visits can continue safely. “I would think with physically distancing, with masking, visits can continue and would be encouraged,” Ducey said.

Gail Tewalt, who is fostering her 2year-old grandson, got a court-approved exemption to continue with virtual visits earlier this month. She provided a letter from her husband’s medical provider expressing concern about a high risk of COVID infection if the boy was sent out of the home to see his parents. Her husband has multiple health conditions, Tewalt said.

Plus, Tewalt added, by virtue of their age — they are 71 and 68 years old — she and her husband are already in a risk category.

Virtual visits have worked well and, as far as she’s concerned, will continue until the child’s case is closed or the virus is contained, she said.

“It’s different if you have a 16-yearold or even an 8-year-old,” she said. “You can tell them to sit back six feet from mommy.”

But that doesn’t work for little ones, especially when their grandson has a tendency to constantly stick his hand in his mouth, she said.

Foster parent Jennifer Jones said the exemptions strike her as random and full of loopholes. For example, what about people in other high-contact positions, such as grocery clerks?

Given the exemptions only apply for the next three weeks, she wondered whether foster parents would even bother to try and opt back into virtual visits. “Schools don’t open until August 17, (so) let families have that same protection,” she wrote in an email. “This is ridiculous and bureaucratic.”

About this report

Coverage of Arizona’s foster-care system is supported by an ongoing grant from the Arizona Community Foundation. To keep up on issues in foster care, child safety and related matters, subscribe to the Arizona Republic. Subscriptions start as low as $3 for three months.

Reach the reporter at maryjo.pitzl@arizonarepublic.com and follow her on Twitter @maryjpitzl