Professional Development
Workshops/How To Work With Families » Foster Parent Training - Options For Youth
Agenda
Job and Family Services - Foster Family Training
The ABC’s of Positive Parenting for Foster Parents
9:00 a.m. - 10:00 a.m.
Set up areas of the room for circle-like seating, arrange toys and both, developmental and academic materials according to their use as mini play-learning centers and lay out handouts and registration logs. You provide paper, pencils or markers and any other materials for use during the sessions, because they are multisensory – that is, family members write, draw, act out and have conversations about each topic or issue presented.
10:00 a.m. - 11:20 a.m.
Introduce the day-long goals for non-competitive and cooperative games, tasks and activities which enhance family life and reduce stress and unwanted behaviors in children from infancy through middle childhood. These goals will be illustrated and posted on a flip chart.
Family members will watch me, as certain principles of non-competitive games, and practice cooperative parenting skills can be applied to play and games. Family members will work as a large group. Working together, they will feel comfortable, get to know their fellow participants and gain confidence in the idea that cooperative interactive learning works better than harsh, restrictive, punitive parenting.
Each area of the room will also have a flip chart, so that small groups can, later in the day, write a list and draw pictures of original games (even if they are stick figures.) They will be motivated to share their new knowledge of what works and what doesn’t.
11:20 a.m. – 12:15 p.m.
Read aloud the story of a foster family and the family whose children are in their care, and encourage participants to share their family stories. Do some relationship “mapping” of the story, including the roles of agencies and “outsiders”, emphasizing common issues, priorities and concerns of both newer foster families and older, more experienced families. Definitions and changing relationships in human services will be integrated threads, through the telling of one family’s story.
12:15 p.m. - 1:10 p.m.
While the participants are eating their lunches, divide the audience into task force groups. Facilitate conversations within each of three groups. There is no official lunch break because they are able to work and talk and eat all at the same time! Some snacks should be on hand, routinely provided and of course they are free to get up, stretch, wander, go to the rest rooms or leave the training at any time.
Each group will engage in a different conversation:
#1 Group will discuss discipline at home and at school and what games aid good behavior. They will also be encouraged to converse about what parent’s can do to change inappropriate or unacceptable behavior using non-threatening or judgmental techniques and strategies.
#2 Group will discuss and write a list of pressures on families that interfere with cooperative, helpful family lifestyles and daily routines. Reunification, family visits, divorce or remarriage, family culture clashes, fights, drug and alcohol addiction, physical and mental abuse issues and concerns will be the hot topics, reflected in each personal family story and history.
#3 Group will talk and write a list of child management strategies and activities (games, tasks, materials, room arrangements, play-learning “props”, and family members’ hobbies) that lead to cooperation, helpful family behavior and non-competitive interactions in the foster care setting.
1:10 p.m. – 2:00 p.m.
Each of the threegroups will share their insights with help from the leader, to review and sum up the important principles that are effective and manageable, regardless of outcome or type of agency planning. Evaluation and assessments will be completed.
