Module 5: Supporting Relationships Between Children and Their Families

The goals of the three sessions in this module are to help foster parents understand the importance of the child's family relationships, to develop their skills to support these relationships, and to provide ways for participants to share the parenting role and to help birth parents.

Course Duration 9 hours
Course Delivery Self-Directed, Online
Course Provider Governors State University, Chicago IL
Course Type Self-Directed, Online

Session One offers participants ideas on how to manage diversity between children, their birth families, and foster families and how to respect the child's culture, traditions, and routines. Methods for helping children manage attachment and loyalty conflicts and issues related to the roles of siblings, extended family or kin, and friends are also covered in this first session.

Session Two provides foster parents with an understanding of the importance of supporting family relationships and ways to work with the family foster care team to meet the child's needs for family connections through visits and other contacts. Information en the goals of visits from each person's perspective and issues related to the location, frequency, and length of visits discussed. Participants learn ways to prepare children for their family visits, to provide support during and after visits, and how to support contacts other than visits.

Session Three focuses specifically on the concept of "Partners in Parenting.” After steps in the process of developing partnerships are presented, participants learn about the skills necessary to implement this concept and acquire information on how to share the parenting role and to support and help birth families.

Course Details

Course Type: Self-Directed, Online
Duration: 9 hours
P.R.I.D.E. Levels of Pay: All Levels
Recertification Required:
Provided by: Governors State University, Chicago IL
Training Type: CORE 1

Upcoming Events: Module 5: Supporting Relationships Between Children and Their Families

No upcoming course events at this time.

Related Courses

P.R.I.D.E. Pre-Service

PRIDE is a licensed model of practice for the development and support of foster families.

Module 9: Managing The Fostering Experience

This module examines the impact of placement on one's family by devoting one session to exploring ways to help foster families manage the changes, transitions, and challenges presented by the fostering role and another session to helping participants manage the impact of abuse and neglect allegations.

Module 5: Supporting Relationships Between Children and Their Families

The goals of the three sessions in this module are to help foster parents understand the importance of the child's family relationships, to develop their skills to support these relationships, and to provide ways for participants to share the parenting role and to help birth parents.

Module 7: Promoting Children's Personal And Cultural Identity

Session One provides participants with an understanding of the importance of valuing and making a commitment to cultural competence and ways to work with the family foster care team to promote positive self-esteem through respecting, advancing and sharing children’s cultural norms and traditions.