Greetings Permanency Champions,
Permanency Tip of the Week: Communicating with Your Youth about Permanency
When you mix in a highly emotional topic like Permanency, especially for youth with long histories of out-of-home care, communication can become exceptionally challenging. It is critical that we focus on remaining in our thinking brain (upper brain) even when our Youth is in their emotional and reactive brains (middle and low brains). This will help us pick up on and properly respond to the verbal and non-verbal cues that our Youth are sending to us before, during, and after our conversation. When our Youth’s emotional state overwhelms their cognitive state, which can often happen when discussing Permanency, sometimes the best mode of communication we can implement is just to be physically present with them.
Permanency Success Story of the Week: 26-Year-Old Foster Mom Was “Hesitant” About Taking In Teens, Until Her 13-Year-Old Son Came Along
PopSugar – On her and her now-husband’s first date, Sara told Stuart that if she ever were to have kids, it would be because she was fostering them. Fast forward a few years, and a now-26-year-old Sara has been a foster mom for three years, and she and Stuart just recently finalized the adoptions of 6-year-old Michael and his brother, 13-year-old Dayshawn. Despite being hesitant about fostering teens, Sara is sharing the boys’ adoption story to shed light on fostering in general, but also fostering teens and kids who come from tough backgrounds and have a harder time getting placed than other kids.
“We planned on only welcoming babies and toddlers into our home. Older kids and teens didn’t even seem like an option. I was only 23 years old and the idea of raising a child so close in age didn’t even seem possible,” Sara told POPSUGAR. “The day we were licensed, we got our first call. It was for a baby who needed a home for a week. We accepted, and it went great. Directly after that baby left, we got a call for a 3-year-old who needed a placement for the weekend. That weekend stretched into a week, and then into months. And then into years. That weekend placement is now our adopted son, Michael…”
Permanency Related Articles:
Overcoming Childhood Trauma: How Parents and Schools Work to Stop the Cycle
ienced some kind of trauma in their childhood, such as loss of a caregiver, substance abuse in the home, homelessness or abuse. There are ten types of “Adverse Childhood Experiences” that were identified in a study conducted in the 1990s. The total number of childhood traumas someone has experienced determines their ACE score…
Residents of Butte County, California, have some of the highest ACE scores in the state. Public health and social services employees aren’t sure why this is, but cite poverty due to a lack of jobs, and high rates of methamphetamine addiction in the 1990s. The county’s office of education took extraordinary steps to address kids’ needs by taking a trauma-informed approach to educating students. “Children have to be healthy enough to learn,” said child psychiatrist and Stanford professor Shashank Joshi. “That’s something that all school districts can agree on. And mental health is part of overall health.” At Honey Run Academy in Paradise, California, principal Dena Kapsalis and her staff are careful not to assume anything about their students — what kinds of homes they come from, or even that they have homes…
Opening Doors for Young Parents
Annie E Casey Foundation – Young people are the workers of today and tomorrow. But those who become parents in their teenage years and early 20s, just as they are getting started in the world of work, are often confronted with a harsh reality: odds stacked against their ability to earn, learn and raise a family, which can threaten their children’s future as well as the strength of our communities…Policies and programs must take the entire family into account to equip young parents and children with the tools and skills necessary for both to succeed.
Four Ways Your Church Can Support Foster and Adoptive Families
Jason Johnson – Supporting families is a massively important part of your church’s foster care and adoption ministry. It’s easily one of the most predominant conversations to be had every time I’m working with leaders. We all know we need to have systems of support in our church, but what does that actually look like? What points of reference can we use to focus our efforts and truly meet the needs of families who are caring for children from hard places?
I like to use this simple four-part structure to give leaders a basic grid through which they can think and plan. It’s certainly not exhaustive, but it’s at least a helpful tool for us to think through. It acts as a frame of reference – away from the generic and broad “you should support families” to the specific and applicable “here’s some lanes to think through as you work to support families”. 1) Tangible; 2) Educational; 3) Relational; 4) Spiritual.
Crossover Youth Practice Model
Center for Juvenile Justice Reform (CJJR) – Georgetown University McCourt School of Public Policy The Crossover Youth Practice Model (CYPM) was developed to improve outcomes for youth who are dually-involved in the child welfare and juvenile justice systems. The model uses a research-based approach to assist child welfare, juvenile justice, and related agencies in adopting policies and practices that better address the needs of these youth and improve their life outcomes. The term “crossover youth” refers to all youth who have experienced some form of abuse or neglect and who engage in delinquent behaviors regardless of their involvement in the systems. The Crossover Youth Practice Model (CYPM) is a strengths-based model designed to meet the needs of crossover youth by working with child welfare and juvenile justice systems in local jurisdictions. This brief is the second in a series that addresses important issues facing those crossover youth who are dually-involved and the systems that serve them.
State Strategies to Meet the Needs of Young Children and Families Affected by the Opioid Crisis
National Assn for State Health Policy – The opioid epidemic continues to have devastating consequences for children and families across the country, with growing social and financial implications for states. The National Academy for State Health Policy (NASHP), in partnership with the Alliance for Early Success, interviewed Kentucky, New Hampshire, and Virginia officials representing state Medicaid, child welfare, and behavioral health programs to explore how their child-serving agencies were responding to the opioid epidemic. This new report explores:
- State strategies to support young children and families affected by the epidemic;
- Available state and federal funding sources for these initiatives; and
- Key considerations for states working to improve services and outcomes for this vulnerable population.
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- Take care and keep up the Permanency work – Our children, youth, young adults, families, and communities are depending on it!
Sincerely,
Dr. Greg Manning