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Search results: 15
In this webinar, viewers will meet Mr. Smith, a 27-year-old single father who works full-time as a health worker. He and his fiancé would like full custody of his 7-year-old son, Samuel. His son is under the care of the Department of Children and Families (DCF) after Samuel’s pre-school teacher reported that he was sleeping in class and arriving to school, on numerous occasions, unkempt and hungry. The school made multiple, yet unsuccessful attempts to meet and speak with Samuel’s mother, Ms. Johnson. Mr. Smith does not understand why DCF did not contact him first instead of placing Samuel in a foster home. He is now required to meet with a social worker, Mr. Muhammad, to “learn parenting skills.”
Presenters introduce core concepts for enhancing diversity-informed practice and present vignettes to highlight how each core concept can be applied to child welfare practice.
Category: Young Children in Foster Care
This webinar focuses on the implementation of "Caring for Children Who Have Experienced Trauma: A Workshop for Resource Parents.” Presenters describe how the curriculum can be used to increase foster care placement stability and how it can be adapted and modified to meet the needs of individual agencies and communities. Specifically, NCTSN Master Trainers discuss how to prepare to facilitate the workshop for the first time, how and why to recruit resource parent co-facilitators, and how to access additional information and consultation.
Category: Creating Trauma-Informed Systems
A client reveals during her first therapy session that she discovered her adoptive mother hid letters from her biological mother. In her past, she was placed in several foster care homes after incidents of physical and sexual abuse and family violence related to drug use by her mother and male partners. Though she was adopted two years ago, finding these hidden letters has escalated her feelings of distrust and not being accepted as a full member of her adoptive family.
The needs of children and families may change in the weeks, months, and years following disasters and terrorism events. To best meet these evolving needs, service providers must appreciate the diversity of recovery trajectories and understand how to stage response activities to promote long-term recovery. This webinar provides an overview of current research and up-to-date knowledge on long-term effects and needs after a disaster, strategies for pacing response activities with the stage of disaster, recommendations for working with systems that support youth living outside the home, including foster care and juvenile justice, and considerations for the role of cultural factors.
Joshua’s mom abandoned him when he was a few days old. For the first three years of his life, Joshua lived with his maternal grandmother and her partner. When Joshua began preschool, his teachers had some concerns about his overall hygiene and care. A few months later, his teacher called DCF to report suspected abuse when he came to school with burns on both of his hands. DCF removed Joshua from his grandmother’s care due to neglect and physical abuse. Joshua went to live with his biological father for two years. At 6 years of age, Joshua’s father was incarcerated, forcing Joshua to be placed in a foster home. DCF arranged visits with his father on and off for a few years after his father’s release from prison. Joshua remained in the same foster home until the day he was arrested for attempted armed robbery at age 15. In this session, the therapist was asked by DCF to work on strengthening the relationship between Joshua and his father to see if he could move in and live with his father’s family in the future. The therapist begins the session by welcoming the father and letting him know that she has been working with Joshua for a month now. The therapist goes over Joshua’s strengths and highlights how grateful Joshua is for the opportunity to reconnect with family.
Presenters address the important role visitation plays for young foster children and their caregivers and discuss ways to organize and improve the visit experience. Participants will learn methods for transforming visitation from a frustrating to a therapeutic experience, including ways to manage children's behavior during and after the visit.
Category: Young Children in Foster Care
In this webinar, presenters provide participants with information about the effects of prenatal exposure to substances and trauma on children. Speakers discuss assessment and treatment approaches for youth and caregivers. A parent shares her story about experiencing the challenges associated with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome.
The NYU Center for Child Welfare Practice Innovation has developed the Child Welfare Traumameter (CWT), a collection of organizational assessment tools and processes that supported the evaluation and implementation of trauma-informed practices within public and private agencies that provides child welfare services (e.g., child protection, preventive and/or foster care services). The CWT can be used to support trauma-informed practices across an agency, or for specific programs within an agency. The goal of the CWT is to help child welfare programs fully integrate a “trauma lens” into their day-to-day activities. It does this by operationalizing different aspects of trauma-informed care, helping agencies identify areas of practice that are currently lacking a trauma focus, and providing agencies with a way to measure the change in their practice over time.
Category: Service Systems
Presenters address providing or referring infants, young children, and their caregivers for trauma-sensitive therapeutic interventions, including Child Parent Psychotherapy (CPP) and Attachment and Biobehavioral Catch-Up (ABC).
Category: Young Children in Foster Care
Describes the impact of traumatic separation, attachment, and attachment disruption on children and adolescents. Speakers share their perspectives on being involved in the child welfare system including clinicians, former foster youth, along with a biological and foster parent. They discuss supporting foster or adoptive children and youth who are coping with traumatic separation in out-of-home care as well as the impact of traumatic separation on birth parents.
Category: Childhood Traumatic Grief
This webinar will provide a brief overview of the definition and impact of traumatic separation. Speakers will discuss the importance of understanding traumatic separation when working with youth in the foster and kincare systems. Potential strategies to reduce the impact of traumatic separation for this population will be addressed. Participants will have an opportunity to share innovative products or processes being implemented in their communities.
Category: Childhood Traumatic Grief
Maya, a 9-year-old girl, was referred for therapy due to numerous instances of domestic violence by her father toward her mother (some of which she witnessed), physical abuse by her father, and possible sexual abuse with no specific disclosures. Both parents have extensive histories of substance abuse, including opioid and amphetamine use. Maya’s father is currently incarcerated for drug and violence-related crimes. Her mother was unable to consistently take care of Maya for the past few years due to substance abuse issues so Maya was removed from her care. Maya has two failed foster home placements due to significant aggressive and sexualized behavior. She is currently residing in a stable foster home and has begun to have monitored visits with her biological mother who was recently discharged from a drug rehabilitation program. Maya has attended therapy with this therapist for only a short time and recently, has begun to demonstrate more trauma-related play. This session illustrates how dysregulation and trauma processing can be exhibited in play, sometimes with significant distress for the child with developmental trauma. The critical dilemma involves to what extent the therapist helps a highly traumatized child to manage her distress versus engage in trauma processing.
If you have participated in an RPC workshop and want a deeper understanding of the real life implications of being removed from one’s home and entering the foster care system or if you give workshops and would like a way to bring some of the concepts to life, we suggest watching this 30-minute webinar by Beth Barto, LMHC, CEO of LUK, Inc. Beth finds that showing Removed gives foster parents “a vivid picture of what it must be like" for children entering the foster care system. She says that the video facilitates “a much more emotional connection to the material in the curriculum by exposing [viewers] to experiences of foster children from a child's perspective.”
Category: Creating Trauma-Informed Systems
Presenters discuss the unique characteristics of young children in foster care as they recover from abuse and neglect and suggest considerations for caregivers and the individuals and systems charged with their care.
Category: Young Children in Foster Care