Training

Session One begins with a discussion of the concept of permanency and how a sense of security, belonging and continuity serve as the foundation for permanency for children in family foster care and with an examination of the risks to children from temporary placements or multiple moves. Then, a case study is used to illustrate the problems with traditional (sequential) permanency planning. The important provisions of the Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA), the key components of concurrent planning, and the role of a permanency planning family are presented. The session concludes by revisiting the same case study to examine the benefits and challenges of concurrent planning for children, birth families, and foster families.

The primary focus of Session Two is on permanency goals and how members of the child welfare team can work together to achieve the goal that will give the child the best opportunity for legal and emotional security, a sense of belonging, and continuity of connections. Participants engage in an activity to examine the benefits and challenges associated with each permanency goal and become familiar with the individual considerations for choosing a permanency goal for a specific child. Content and activities are designed to enable participants to identify the possible feelings that children and families might have about each goal, and to understand the potential conflict between the agency and the foster parent when choosing a permanency goal. The last part of the session is dedicated to helping participants understand the special needs of youth as they approach emancipation from the foster care system and to heighten their awareness of their agency's independent living programs.

The primary focus of Session Three is on the role of foster parents in helping children make the transition from family foster care to a permanent family, either through reunification or placement in an adoptive family. Several small and large group activities are used to develop participants’ awareness of the perspectives, feelings, and behaviors that children, birth families and foster parents experience in relation to the reunification process. A discussion of what foster parents can do to manage their own and other’s feelings and behaviors during the reunification process follows these activities. The second part of this session focuses on transitioning children from foster families to "adoptive families. Content and activities are designed to assist participants with understanding the tasks related to carrying out an adoptive placement plan, explaining the role of the foster parent to the child when the foster parent decides not to adopt or when the foster parent does make the commitment to be the child's forever family, and ways to manage the feelings of al involved in the adoption process

The focus of the fourth and last session of this module is on the goal of providing children with permanency through foster parent adoption. After an in depth discussion of the definition of adoption, including the differences between adoption and family foster care, participants identify the questions that need to be addressed in order for foster parents to make an informed decision about adoption. Case scenarios are used to highlight the issue of making the decision to adopt and a checklist is reviewed for the same purpose. Adoption as a “lifelong process” is discussed along with the topics of openness in adoption, the normal crises in adoption, the supports and services available after adoption and adoption subsidy.