Family and visits

Depends on the facility. It is in the handbook, and the approval process takes weeks, so start it before you go.

Days, hours, and how crowded the room gets vary enormously by institution — the facility guide tracks it per place. The rules underneath it are PS 5267.09.

Ask your counselor. The usual causes are an incomplete form or something on their record.

Both are fixable and neither gets fixed on its own. The visiting chapter of the family guide walks the person on the outside through it.

Yes.

Very briefly, at the beginning and end of the visit.

Yes.

Absolutely.

Mostly it depends on the adults around them.

Kids do better when they are told the truth in a way that fits their age and kept in contact. Cover stories collapse, and the collapse is worse than the truth would have been.

I am sorry. It happens a great deal and there is not much comfort to offer about it.

The practical version: do not spend your minutes on it. The head stuff is where that one lives.

The chaplain notifies you, and they generally handle it well.

If you are lucky you may get a furlough for the funeral. It is unlikely.

Unlikely.

It is not impossible — escorted trips exist and they are rare, expensive for the institution, and denied far more often than granted. Ask anyway. Ask immediately, in writing, and have your family ask from their side at the same time.