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Support Services for Adoptive, Foster, and Kinship Care Families

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Support Services for Adoptive, Foster, and Kinship Care Families CHAPTER THREE Support Services for Adoptive, Foster, and Kinship Care Families Like early preparation and development of prospective parents, post-placement support is critical to achieving the goal of finding and maintaining a pool of stable, loving families for children and youth, as well as helping families succeed and thrive after the placement. Children and youth often need therapeutic and other services to help them heal from the trauma, loss, and grief they experi- enced in their early lives and build trust and attachment in their new family. They need connections with their peers to help normalize their experiences and can benefit from mentors and other role models. Parents also need connections with their peers and access to information, training, and respite. Many families need crisis services from time to time or case management to help them figure out how and where to get the help they need. All members of the foster, adoptive, or kinship family may need access to child welfare-competent, effective mental health services. In this chapter, we explore the types of adoptive, foster, and kinship care support services available, the qualities that make the services most effective, and which services are most commonly provided now. Then, we profile 31 programs that are currently offering an array of services to children, youth, and families involved in adoption, foster care, and kinship care. These profiles are designed to show you, as a State, Tribal, or Territorial administrator, what’s working in other communities and what’s possible in your own jurisdiction. Types of Services Support services for children, youth, and families in adoption, foster care, and kinship care typically fit into the 15 broad categories outlined below. Basic Services • Child or youth assessment — As Chapter 1 explains, children and youth in foster care and those who are exiting foster care have experienced trauma and often have significant needs and chal- lenges such as disabilities, prenatal exposure to alcohol or other drugs, and learning difficulties. To ensure children and youth have the best chance to succeed, a thorough, trauma-informed assessment helps identify their strengths, their needs, the services their family may need to help them heal and grow, and changes the family might make to support their ongoing development. Whenever possible, the professionals conducting the assessment should meet with caregivers to explain results and make connections to needed services. Several of the programs described below offer thorough child assessments, including the Children’s Trauma Assessment Center (page 114) and the Seminole Tribe of Florida’s Family Services Department (page 178). The Seminole Tribe’s program conducts bio-psycho-social assessments for older children and youth and collaborates with the tribe’s Children’s Center for Diagnostics and Therapy, which conducts developmental assessments for younger children. • Information — For many adoptive, foster, and kinship care families, access to relevant informa- tion is a valuable asset. A common source of information is a website with fact sheets, articles, 49 and links to resources on key issues in adoption, foster care, and kinship care, including diagno- ses and disabilities common among children in care. Other information might include parenting tips, the typical needs of children and youth who have experienced out-of-home care, or char- acteristics of successful foster, adoptive, or kinship parents. Some websites include searchable databases of effective local resources, such as mental health providers who use evidence-based therapeutic techniques, support groups, training, and more. In addition to online information, many programs offer print newsletters, fact sheets, or libraries to help parents build their knowl- edge and skills. For example, one of the programs profiled later in this chapter — Alabama Pre/ Post Adoption Connections (page 83) — runs three large lending libraries where families can access resources on adoption and special needs at no charge. • Navigation, advocacy, and referral — Many support programs have a phone helpline through which experienced caregivers, program staff, or volunteers answer questions, provide support, and make referrals to known, trusted, and culturally responsive services in the local community. Staff or volunteers also help parents advocate for assistance or benefits the family needs, such as special education services and medical or mental health care. Several programs profiled later offer specific navigation services including Washington state’s (page 198) and the Edgewood Center for Children and Families’ (page 125) kinship support programs. • Training and other development — Training parents on topics including core child welfare issues; common disabilities and behaviors; helping children and youth heal; sibling issues and family dynamics; the effects of trauma; and accessing available services can be a tremendous help to parents from the moment they consider adoption, foster care, or kinship care, and for as long as they are parenting these children. In-person and Web-based training sessions help participants develop their parenting skills, better understand their children’s race and cultural needs, expand their knowledge base, and become more able to successfully raise children who have experienced trauma and loss and who may have significant challenges or disabilities. Some programs also offer training to child welfare and other professionals who serve children, youth, and families in adoption, foster care, and kinship care, as well as extended family members and community members who serve as a support network to the family. Tennessee Adoption Support and Preservation, for example, offers pre-placement training, conferences for adoptive parents, and training to mental health providers and other community members (page 78). KEEP (Keep- ing Foster and Kin Parents Supported and Trained) offers a 16-week curriculum to groups of seven to 10 foster caregivers (page 149). • Birth family mediation and adoption search — Many families need special supports to help them negotiate birth family relationships, whether they are foster parents who are co-parenting children or youth who will be returning home, kinship caregivers trying to establish boundaries between the child in their care and the child’s birth parents, or adoptive parents in an open, co- operative, or customary adoption. Information, advice, and counseling can help adoptive, foster, and kinship care parents feel more comfortable working with birth family members and building connections designed to improve outcomes for children and youth balancing more than one set of family relationships and loyalties. Like other foster care programs, Kennedy Krieger (page 153) trains its treatment foster parents to support the relationship between children and youth and their birth family members. 50 Enhanced Services • Peer support — One of the most common services in adoption, foster care, and kinship arrange- ments — both for parents or whole families and for children and youth — is support from peers. Whether through parent liaisons or navigators, mentoring, buddy programs, online and in-per- son support groups, or social activities, children, youth, and parents benefit from spending time with others in similar situations. Birth parents whose children have been adopted also benefit from gathering with their peers whose children were adopted by other families. Peer support enables those with more experience to share their wisdom and encouragement and provides a safe, non-judgmental place for children and parents to ask questions and provide one another with insight into their experiences. Peer support normalizes the experiences of children, youth, and families as they make connections with others living in similar circumstances or with sim- ilar experiences. These services can reduce isolation and stress and provide families with hope and encouragement even as their children continue to face challenges. In addition to these specific peer support services, many support programs use experienced youth and parents as professional care providers and staff. Examples of peer support programs in this guide include parent liaisons offering one-on-one peer support to foster and adoptive parents for the Iowa Foster and Adoptive Parent Association (page 145) and The Children’s Home (page 108) running 10 to 14 monthly support groups in its three-county area. Adoption Network Cleveland (page 71) offers peer-led support groups for adoptees, birth parents, and adoptive parents. Many of the programs we highlight offer specific peer-to-peer youth groups or activities. • Mentoring — Although parents are often mentored by their peers, children and youth are more often mentored by adults. In these programs, mentors may have experience with foster care or adoption, but more often are volunteers who serve as safe role models and who can provide young people with additional support and new experiences. These trained and supported adult mentors help increase a youth’s opportunity for educational or career development and provide social and emotional support. The Fostering Healthy Futures program (page 135) has graduate students serve as formal mentors to children in foster care. Several other programs described be- low — including the Midwest Foster Care and Adoption Association (page 157) and UCLA TIES (page 193) — also offer mentoring for youth. • Other services for children and youth — In addition to peer
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