Safe Spaces Are Important for Healing and Connection in Foster Care

Family reunification is one of the most emotional moments in the foster care journey. Yet, too often, these deeply personal visits happen in cold, sterile rooms that add stress instead of comfort. When children and their families are given a warm, supportive place to reconnect, it changes everything. That’s why Safelite Foundation and Foster Love are committed to transforming outdated visitation rooms into Safe Spaces. Each Safelite Foundation x Foster Love Safe Space is thoughtfully designed to create an atmosphere of comfort, hope, and healing, making it easier for families to rebuild their bonds. These environments feature:

• Cozy furniture and calming lighting
• Books, toys, and sensory tools
• Calming, inspirational décor

What Are Visitation Rooms?

Visitation rooms are designated spaces where children in foster care meet with their biological family members under supervision. These visits are essential. They allow children to maintain bonds with their parents, siblings, or extended family members—even while living apart. For families working toward reunification, visitation is an opportunity to show growth, rebuild trust, and maintain a consistent presence in their child’s life.

For the child, these rooms can be both emotionally grounding and deeply sensitive. In a best-case scenario, they’re a space for comfort and reconnection. But in too many cases, the reality falls short.

The Problem With Traditional Visitation Rooms

All too often, visitation rooms are sterile and unwelcoming. Cold lighting, cinderblock walls, metal folding chairs, and the absence of comforting details can make these environments feel more like detention rooms than places for healing. These spaces were never designed with children—or their emotional well-being—in mind.

When a room feels cold, clinical, or judgmental, it can disrupt the fragile emotional process that’s unfolding. A child may feel anxious or unsafe. A parent may feel uncomfortable or scrutinized. The goal of connection gets lost in the discomfort of the environment. These rooms, in their current form, are not promoting healing—they’re hindering it.

How Foster Love Is Transforming These Spaces

We are stepping in to reimagine what visitation rooms can be through our Foster Love Safe Spaces initiative. By redesigning these rooms with soft lighting, warm colors, child-sized furniture, books, toys, and sensory tools, we’re creating spaces that feel less institutional and more like a home.

Our trauma-informed approach focuses on making children feel emotionally and physically safe. These new rooms help reduce stress and anxiety, encourage natural interactions between families, and allow social workers to observe more authentic behavior and communication.

In the newly transformed rooms, we’ve seen dramatic improvements: children are more relaxed, families feel more respected, and the overall tone of visits is more positive. These are small but powerful steps in long-term healing.

Safe Spaces Are Already Making an Impact

We’re proud to share that fully renovated Foster Love Safe Spaces are already open in Ohio and Houston, with several more locations currently in development. These rooms are designed in partnership with child welfare professionals, former foster youth, and trauma experts—because when it comes to healing, every detail matters.

Whether it’s a parent playing with their child on a soft rug, or siblings reading together on a cozy couch, these spaces are helping to restore what foster care so often disrupts: trust, comfort, and connection.

Join Us in Building More Safe Spaces

Every child in foster care deserves a space where they can feel safe, seen, and supported. At Foster Love, we’re working to bring these rooms to every corner of the country. If you believe in creating environments that help families heal, we invite you to be part of this movement.

Together, we can build rooms that change lives and spark healing moments filled with unexpected happiness.