Permanency Tip of the Week: Week 2 of 5 – Role of Education in Permanency
Addressing the absence of Permanency is NOT a Child Welfare problem. The role of Education in all phases of the Permanency process is to partner with the caregivers and allied professionals to create the sense of Permanency for the child so that he / she can feel socially, emotionally and cognitively secure enough to achieve their highest educational potential. Our Youth in foster care lose traction in their academic careers because of the frequent moves in school and caregivers. As noted in the Permanency success story below, once this sibling set found Permanency – they were quickly able to get back on track academically. On the journey towards securing Permanency, it is critically important to pay attention to the role that a solid connection with someone at their school can play in helping a child feel safe and secure.
Permanency Story of the Week: Siblings Make Educational Strides Since Finding Forever Family
A Wendy’s Wonderful Kids Adoption – Siblings Carter, Cynthia and Charlie were placed in foster care in 2009 after their parents were arrested for drug-related offenses. Their family history is full of physical and learning disabilities as well as health issues, and all of the children were academically delayed from a lack of active learning when they were younger.
When a Wendy’s Wonderful Kids recruiter intervened, he really got to know Carter, Cynthia and Charlie during weekly get-togethers, taught them what adoption meant, and found the right family for them. That family was the Shanahans. The siblings quickly formed strong bonds with the Shanahans and their educational delays have nearly disappeared since becoming a part of their family.
At their adoption, Carter spoke volumes for his siblings and himself when he smiled and said, “I get to be a Shanahan forever!”
Current Permanency Related Articles:
What’s the Point of Adopting a 17-year-old Kid?
The difference a dedicated parent can make in the life of a child is no less significant if that child is 17 days old or 17 years old. And to a child who has endured the trauma of being permanently removed from the care of his or her biological family, who was placed into state care with the expectation that they would be given a more secure, safer situation, the need for that protection is all the more urgent. Adopting a 17-year-old isn’t about giving them the childhood they never had crammed into one year; it’s about giving them a family to turn to for the rest of their life. And we never, ever outgrow the need for a family.
Children’s Bureau – Adoption Excellence Awards for the Year 2015
This document lists the recipients of the 2015 Adoption Excellence Awards and provides a brief description of each recipients work.
Ten Questions Answered About Late Discovery Adoption
Late Discovery Adoption (LDA) refers to a person learning in adulthood that they were adopted as children. Those of us who discovered their adoption status as adults are sometimes called late discovery adoptees, or LDAs, though not everyone embraces this label.
Adopt US Kids promotes new PSA Campaign: November is National Adoption Month
November is National Adoption Month and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, AdoptUSKids, and the Ad Council have created a new PSA campaign that encourages prospective parents to adopt older youth from foster care.
The Online Chapter is Building A Home Within
Right now our Online Chapter is building A Home Within, and we invite you to join us. As the only national nonprofit focused exclusively on meeting the emotional needs of foster youth, A Home Within asks therapists to see one current or former foster youth in weekly pro bono therapy…By providing one lasting, healthy relationship you can help a young person escape the cycle of chronic loss. Even after one year, the youth we serve experience statistically significant reductions in anxiety, depression, and dissociative disorders.
BEHIND a half-century of policies to promote child development, there lies an assumption: that children are essentially equally affected by the environments they grow up in, and that positive interventions like preschool education should therefore help all children. But what if this isn’t true?
Evidence suggests that some children are — in one frequently used metaphor — like delicate orchids; they quickly wither if exposed to stress and deprivation, but blossom if given a lot of care and support. Others are more like dandelions; they prove resilient to the negative effects of adversity, but at the same time do not particularly benefit from positive experiences. In this sense, resilience, long thought to be an exclusively beneficial characteristic, is actually a double-edged sword.