Permanency Tip of the Week: Emotional Safety on the Permanency Journey
When children are involved in the Permanency process, one key factor that we must continue to focus on is helping to ensure that we create settings for them to feel emotionally safe. Often we look at a setting and determine that it LOOKS safe, but that does not mean that the child will FEEL safe. Creating emotional safety with the new family must be a collaborative process and it starts before their first contact with each other and continues every step of the way. It is important for us to as well as the child to monitor the individual and collective levels of emotional safety and make the necessary adjustments to help the child feel as safe as possible as often as possible. In therapy, the child and the family can practice interventions they can implement in order to increase the level of emotional safety.
Permanency Story of the Week: Never too old for family – A Wendy’s Wonderful Kids Adoption
Michelle came into the system at age 6 and at age 19 was still waiting for her forever family. She was adopted by family members after coming into foster care, but four years later the adoption dissolved. After that Michelle was placed with five families, but in all instances Michelle had to leave the home. This happens frequently to children in foster care, but our Wendy’s Wonderful Kids recruiters do not give up. At age 19, Michelle was still qualifying for foster care in her state, but she wanted to move out of state to live with her best friend’s family. To the recruiter’s delight, this family was very interested in making Michelle a permanent part of the family. Our WWK recruiter helped them find a lawyer that would take the case for free and the rest is history. After 13 years, Michelle says she finally has her home. After nearly not graduating from high school, she is now getting straight A’s in college, studying for her driver’s license and says she knows she is loved unconditionally.
Current Permanency Related Articles:
Therapeutic Parenting for Adoptive Parents–Nutshell Version
Dear Parent, Where is the cheat sheet for therapeutic parenting when you need a primer in a pinch? Right here, in a nutshell–fifteen tips on being a therapeutic parent to your traumatized, attachment challenged child.
New Info Packet Examines the Needs of Children and Youth in Foster Care
The National Center for Child Welfare Excellence (NCCWE) has released a new packet of information —Emotional and Psychological Well-Being of Children in Foster Care — that explores facts and statistics about the mental health concerns of children in foster care. The report emphasizes the importance of assessments of children given the abuse, neglect, and trauma they have typically experienced. The packet also emphasizes the importance of education and training for foster parents, and highlights policies and practices that help children in foster care access mental health services.
Factors That Mediate Childhood Trauma
In a study published in the journal Child Indicators Research, Child Trends researchers found that the more traumatic experiences a teen endures, the less likely they are to enjoy high levels of well-being. Many factors can help, though: among them are living in a safe neighborhood, attending a safe school, and having friends and activities monitored by parents.
Striving to Find Foster Parents in America’s Largest Muslim Community
Dearborn is home to the largest concentration of Muslims in North America, and Jawed is one of only about a dozen Muslim foster parents in the area. Since child welfare agencies don’t typically record religious affiliation of children in foster care, the precise number of Muslim children in care is unknown. But the existence of Muslim Family Services – an organization that provides mental health and other support services, including foster parent certification, to Muslim families – combined with the numbers of Muslim orphans entering the U.S. as refugees suggests that there may be a growing need for these homes.
Muhammad, the prophet and founder of Islam, was an adopted child and became an adoptive parent. But in the U.S., Islamic communities in areas like Dearborn have been hesitant to join the ranks of foster and adoptive parents. The lack of Muslim foster homes complicates the already challenging task of ensuring a child’s mental and physical well-being when she is removed from her parents’ care.
Strategies for Effective Interjurisdictional Work
Children and youth in care benefit when child welfare systems have processes in place to support effective and efficient interjurisdictional work. Interjurisdictional work can involve challenges; however, in some cases, it is in the best interest of the child and can contribute to agencies achieving permanency for children and youth.
A Father’s Contact from Prison Made All the Difference to His Son
Last week we shared the story of Coley Harris, a previously incarcerated father dedicated to helping youth in his hometown of Wilmington, DE to develop meaning and direction in their lives. But what about Coley’s son? For 14 years, Ahmarr Melton knew that something wasn’t quite right. Ahmarr grew up with his dad in prison until he was 16 years old. Unfortunately, this is an all-too-common reality for many of our nation’s children. Over 1.1 million incarcerated individuals are fathers of children between the ages of 0-17, and the number of children with an incarcerated father has risen 79% since 1991. But the silver lining is that a father’s absence (or in this case, incarceration) doesn’t have to end badly for all involved. With commitment and determination, a father-son relationship can come out of the ashes, and become a seed that finds life.