Permanency Tip of the Week: Safety and Danger in Permanency
A loving, unconditional and life-long relationship is understandably linked for a child with both emotional and physical safety. When you have experienced abuse, neglect and / or trauma (especially early in life), your thoughts and feelings about Permanency may be more closely linked with danger instead of safety. This reality needs to be validated and through a steady and repetitive series of reparative relational experiences, our Youth can begin to shift their thoughts and feelings about Permanency from ones of danger to ones of safety.
Permanency Story of the Week: Mom, 92, adopts 76-year-old daughter
At age 92, Muriel Clayton is a mother again, having adopted the woman who’s been her “daughter” for more than six decades. Just not officially. Mary Smith, who’s now 76, knew Clayton as her fun older cousin as she was growing up. “She was so much fun,” said Smith. “We kind of got along real well. I loved her then.”
Current Permanency related articles:
Follow-up to the powerful 2013 “short film about the emotional journey of a nine-year old girl who is taken from her abusive birth home and placed in the tumultuous foster care system.”
But I adopted my child at birth. What do you mean trauma?
Alex Stavros – Calo – It is not uncommon for adoptive parents to come to us feeling out of options for their difficult child and overwhelmed about what could have created all of these DSM diagnoses and intense feelings and behaviors. Especially if the child was adopted at or near birth… (see attachment).
Amazing Awesome List of Best Chapter Books for Kids
Presenting Portrait of an Adoption’s most amazing list of chapter books for kids! Each bullet point in the following list is a comment that came from one of my avid readers. The list includes a wide variety of titles that span a range of reading abilities. I tried to remove any duplicate recommendations, such as the many repeat suggestions to read Percy Jackson or books by Tamora Pierce. Enjoy!
Coming To Live With You: Preparing for a New Foster Child’s Placement
Dr. John DeGarmo – …The arrival of a new foster child in your house can indeed be a time of excitement, as well as anxiety. The phone call from a caseworker asking if you would like a foster child placed in your home can leave you in a state of apprehension. It is often a time of questions, from you and your family, as well as from the foster child. For the child coming into your home, it is especially an intimidating period. It is important to remember that this new foster child is being moved from his own family and his own home, against his wishes, to a strange home, and to an unknown family. It is a time of fear and uncertainty for him, and often a time of deep trauma. While each child is unique, it is difficult to predict how each new foster child will react to this sudden and extreme change. Yet, with a little preparation and planning beforehand, you can ease the stress that is sure to occur in this transition a little…
Feds to Require States to Track Pregnant and Parenting Foster Youth
Last fall, President Obama signed House Resolution 4980 into law, which included a wide range of provisions; including new state requirements to better serve commercially sexually exploited children, a change in the structure of adoption incentives and much more.
Tucked into the extensive legislation is a new requirement for states to report the number of children in foster care who are pregnant or parenting. According to the legislation, this information must be reported through the Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System (AFCARS), effective Fiscal Year 2016.
Resource Guide for Expectant and Parenting Foster Youth
The Center for the Study of Social Policy (CSSP) has published an updated compendium of programs, initiatives, interventions and curricula that focus on serving the needs of expectant and parenting foster youth and their children. The original resource guide, created in 2011, was updated following a two-year collaboration between CSSP and child welfare agencies in Tennessee, New York, Washington, DC and Washington State to put many of these strategies into practice.
Organized into the categories of parenting supports, developmental supports for children and parents and preparation for adulthood, the resource guide offers an extensive menu of 73 different programs that aim to improve the long term safety and permanency outcomes for foster youth parents. Special care is given to ensuring that these practice strategies are trauma-informed and include resources that pertain to co-parenting and helping young men navigate fatherhood.