Permanency Tip of the Week: Meeting the Child’s Need or the Parents’ Needs?
When evaluating the viability of a placement opportunity, especially when it is an Adoptive home, the assessment of whose needs are primarily being met by the placement is important. The focus of our work needs to remain centered on meeting the needs of the child while at the same time actively partnering and supporting the parent(s). Sometimes we encounter parent(s) whose expressed or implied desire is to make sure that their own personal needs will be met by the child coming into their home. These needs might be to help them feel wanted, be loved or to fill a hole created by a loss. When this is the case, it is important to pause and consider the impact on the child of having the burden of meeting the needs of the parent while at the same time desperately needing their own needs to be met.
Permanency Story of the Week: Jef and Guy: A Story of Adoption
A son. A father. How they found each other. You Gotta Believe family, Jef and Guy tell their story.
Current Permanency Related Articles:
Avoiding Sibling Separation in Adoption
It is important to ask if the child you are planning to adopt has any siblings that have been placed with families elsewhere and try everything possible to ensure all the siblings maintain contact. Also ask to be notified if the mother of the child you’re adopting has a subsequent child who also needs placement. Every effort should be made to facilitate contact between the children.
APP: TF-CBT Triangle of Life
A new mobile game app helps children who have experienced trauma by letting them use their tablets or smartphones to practice life skills they have learned in the therapist’s office. During the game, TF-CBT Triangle of Life, created by mental health professionals at Allegheny Health Network and students at the Entertainment Technology Center at Carnegie Mellon University, the player takes the role of a lion in the jungle guiding other animals toward positive experiences and relationships. You can download the free TF-CBT Triangle of Life app from iTunes and Google Play stores.
From Trauma to Redemption: How My Teachers Helped Me Survive My Life
America’s Promise Alliance published a new study this fall, Don’t Quit On Me: What Young People Who Left School Say About the Power of Relationships, and invited young people to share their stories about the power of relationships. Amnoni’s story is the second post in a series by young people about the ways adults and peers can help more young people graduate from high school.
What I Wish Others Knew About How Foster Parents Grieve
Dr. John DeGarmo – Perhaps one of the most difficult aspects of being a foster parent is the moment when our child from foster care leaves our homes.
A Rising Tide of Foster Care Entries
Chronicle of Social Change – The new data appear to confirm an end to the major decline in caseloads that occurred in the first decade of this century. The number of children in foster care fell from 567,000 in 1999 to 398,000 in 2011. The foster care caseloads declined slightly in 2012 and increased slightly in 2013, to 400,989. The 2014 figure suggests that we may be entering an era of increasing foster care caseloads.
Impact of Adoption on Adoptive Parents
Adoptive parenthood, like other types of parenthood, can bring tremendous joy—and a sizable amount of stress. This factsheet explores some of the emotional ups and downs that adoptive parents may experience before, during, and after adoption. While every family is unique and every parent has different feelings and experiences, there are some general themes that emerge regarding adoptive parents’ emotional responses. This factsheet identifies some of these themes, affirms common feelings, and provides links to resources that may help your family address adoption-related concerns.
Child Welfare and Human Trafficking
Child Welfare Information Gateway has published an issue brief, Child Welfare and Human Trafficking, which gives an overview of the crossover between the child welfare field and current work on preventing and responding to human trafficking of children and youth in the United States. The brief focuses on sex trafficking of children and youth—the type of trafficking most likely to affect the child welfare population—providing basic information, highlights of Federal legislation, a discussion on the needs of victims, and ways that child welfare agencies can address the problem of the trafficking of children.