Permanency Tip of the Week: Danger of Avoiding the Grief and Loss Work
When we are successful in securing Permanency for a Youth that we are working with, it is often tempting to “put the past behind us and just move on.” If the child’s grief and loss history is not appropriately and supportively addressed both within the family and in counseling, we run a serious risk of the new found Permanency being disrupted. It is not that we are trying to bring down the joy related to the new found Permanency. Rather, it is that we are trying to resolve the past losses so that the Youth can fully enjoy the new found Permanency.
Permanency Story of the Week: All Youth Need Unconditional Commitment – Especially After They Sign Out of Care
Tonight’s guest is Dawn Chillon who shares her story of unconditionally committing to Adora after being Adora’s counselor for the final 5 years of her foster care stay. On her 18th birthday, Adore signed herself out of care and became homeless. Listen to this You Gotta Believe broadcast to hear ideas about how one can stay unconditionally committed and very involved in a young person’s life after they leave care against anyone’s sensible advice not too… Listen to this interview for great practical advice on how to serve a youth you love after that youth inadvisably signs his or her self out of the foster care system.
Current Permanency Related Articles:
Differential Diagnosis: Trauma and ADHD
Many children who exhibit clinical symptoms of attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and have been diagnosed often exhibit symptoms that may resemble symptoms of children who have experienced or been exposed to trauma. Symptoms of trauma and ADHD manifest with conditions affecting the child’s behavioral, mental, physical, and/or emotional health. As a consequence of the overlapping symptoms and lack of trauma-informed training, medical and educational professionals are sometimes unable to distinguish the cause of problematic behaviors, resulting in an unfitting diagnosis. To help separate the behavioral commonalities of ADHD and trauma, the National Child Traumatic Stress Network (NCTSN) published a podcast that features an interview with Dr. Heather Forkey, a pediatrician at the University of Massachusetts Memorial Medical Center.
Access Parenting After Trauma: Understanding Your Child’s Needs: A Guide for Foster and Adoptive Parents on the American Academy of Pediatrics website.
| Older youth likely to leave foster care without permanent home |
National Adoption Month – 2016 focused on older youth in foster care who are awaiting adoption. Unfortunately, older youth are less likely to be adopted and too often age out of the foster care system without ever finding a permanent family. According to the Administration for Children and Families, in FY 2014, 22,392 of the 107,918 youth waiting to be adopted were emancipated from foster care. That means nearly 1 out of every 4 youth awaiting adoption lost access to much needed education and financial support systems because they reached a certain age, usually 18-21 depending on the state. There is no age limit for needing a family.
Webinar (01/14/16) — Working with Pediatricians around Trauma: What’s Helpful for Child Welfare Workers to Know
Jan. 14, 2016 — 3-4:30 p.m. EST – CWLA, in partnership with the NCTSN, is presenting a webinar series addressing current advances in the field of trauma-informed child welfare practice. The webinar series “Advancements in the Field: What’s Working?” highlights the latest evidence-informed and evidence-based trauma practices in key areas relevant to the work of child welfare. Reserve your seat for the upcoming presentation.
Celia Center (Los Angeles) Arts Festival – January 23rd, 2016
This year’s inaugural Celia Center Arts Festival features the works of artists who use their creativity to express their experiences as individuals who were adopted and/or in foster care across many mediums. Entitled “Adopting Resilience, Fostering the Spirit of Creativity: The Voices of the Fostered and Adopted” the festival will feature stories and backgrounds of many, and seeks to bring together the voices that are often left out of the conversation on foster care and adoption. The Festival gives the Foster Care and Adopted a spotlight with the hopes of deepening the foster care and adoption conversation in Los Angeles and worldwide.
How childhood trauma could be mistaken for ADHD
“Despite our best efforts in referring them to behavioral therapy and starting them on stimulants, it was hard to get the symptoms under control,” she said of treating her patients according to guidelines for ADHD. “I began hypothesizing that perhaps a lot of what we were seeing was more externalizing behavior as a result of family dysfunction or other traumatic experience.”
Aging Out Institute is designed to be a resource for youth aging out of foster care – and those who work with those youth – to help them find programs and other resources that can help them transition to independence and adulthood. Please look through the site, and if you know of a program that we can add, please send it through the Contact page!