FOSTER CARE BASICS
Overview: Healthy babies…medically fragile newborns…preschoolers…gradeschool kids…teenagers. Hundreds of children right here in El Paso County are in foster care at any given time due to abuse and neglect. They need a stable and nurturing foster family to live with until it’s safe to go home again, or—when that safety just isn’t possible—they need caring people to give them a “forever home” through adoption.
How do children come into care?
• On an emergency basis, after being removed from the home by police or DHS investigators; the child may need placement any time of the day or night.
• On a non-emergency basis, typically when coming from another agency’s foster or (failed) adoptive home but also from a birth home after family preservation services that were in place by DHS failed to keep the children safe or properly cared for.
How is a foster family chosen for a particular child?
DHS calls each of the eight child placement agencies (CPAs) in El Paso County with information about a child needing placement. Hope & Home looks to see which families have openings and which one would be the best fit for the child, and suggests that family to DHS by forwarding an in-depth report about them called a homestudy. Ultimately, after reviewing the homestudy, DHS will choose the most suitable parents regardless of whose agency the family belongs to. This process can unfold in less than an hour or over the course of several days, depending on the child’s situation.
How are Hope & Home foster families selected and prepared for their role?
• Selection is based upon motivation (do they have missional hearts for these children?), expectations, financial soundness, suitable lifestyle and appropriate background.
• Hope & Home’s training process consists of a weekend orientation called The Launch, followed by eight weeks of one-night-a-week classes. Also required is CPR/First Aid training, a homestudy and a home inspection or facility check. Once certified, families must attend one support group a month during which two additional hours of ongoing training are earned.
What is expected of the birth family?
• Show up for court-ordered visitation time with their child, adhering to the rules of the visitation center (at Hope & Home, the Advanced Center for ParenTime).
• Follow and successfully complete their caseworker-suggested and court-ordered treatment plan.
What is expected of the foster family?
• Love and care for the children as if they were the foster parents’ own.
• Transport children to and from visitation with their birth parent(s).
• Schedule and take children to and from therapy and doctor appointments.
• Adhere to Volume 7 regulations regarding the care of foster children.
• Recognize that birth parents have a legal right to try to get their children back, and be prepared to relinquish them; at the same time, be willing to consider adoption if parental rights get terminated.
• Attend a monthly foster parent support group and special Hope & Home events for families.
• Undertake 20 hours of continuing parenting education each year after becoming certified.
INDUSTRY TERMS:
DHS: Stands for Department of Human Services. DHS assumes custody of children who’ve been removed from their homes, ratifies our certified foster families, and selects which foster family gets a particular child placed with them. El Paso County DHS is Hope & Home’s primary customer.
CPA: Stands for Child Placement Agency. Hope & Home is one of eight CPAs doing foster/adopt work in El Paso County.
Caseworker: At Hope & Home, a social services professional who assesses and monitors birth parents’ needs, develops and oversees their treatment plan, intercedes in court on the birth parents’ behalf or makes recommendations against their continued parental involvement.
Home Supervisor: A Hope & Home staff member who serves as a foster family’s main point of contact with the agency. Home supervisors visit the parents and children in their home at least once a month; address concerns within the family regarding Volume 7 regulations, children’s behavior, required paperwork and other issues; and shepherd the family through the process of yearly recertification.
Hope Worker: Unique to Hope & Home, this social services professional is a liaison between DHS, the foster parents and the birth parents in the first few weeks of a child’s placement.
Treatment Plan: As determined by the caseworker, the course of action a birth parent needs to take to get his or her child back. This may entail such things as completing a drug treatment program, taking parenting classes or finding more suitable housing.
GAL: Stands for Guardian ad Litem. This is an attorney appointed by the courts to represent the best legal interests of the child.
CASA: Stands for Court-Appointed Special Advocate. This is a lay-person volunteer from the community who is trained to also represent a child’s interests in court.
Respondent Attorney: This is a lawyer appointed by the courts to represent the birth parent’s legal rights.
NOTE: In addition to the foster parents, a single child in foster care may have a Hope & Home caseworker, Hope Worker, home supervisor, DHS caseworker, CASA, GAL and respondent’s attorney all associated in some way with his or her case.
Visitation: Court-ordered, supervised time that a birth parent and child may spend together while the child is in foster care. Hope & Home oversees more than two thousand hours of visitation on site each year.
Reunification: A ruling by a judge ordering that a child be returned to the custody of his or her birth parent(s).
Termination: A ruling by a judge permanently ending a birth parent’s legal rights and custody of their child. Children are not available for adoption until rights have been terminated, at which point they become “legally free.”
Volume 7: The official regulations and guidelines governing foster care as determined by the state of Colorado.
STATISTICS
• Hope & Home cares for 60 percent of all foster children in El Paso County.
• 60 percent of our children are age 6 or younger.
• The average length of stay (until reunification or adoption) is 152 days, or roughly 5 months, for children ages 0 to 8; for children ages 9 to 18, it is 4.7 months.
• Children placed with Hope & Home spend roughly 20 fewer days in care than those placed with any other agency in El Paso County.
FOSTER PARENT EDUCATION AT HOPE & HOME
Why so much emphasis on parenting education?
• The state of Colorado requires new foster parents to have 27 hours of pre-certification training plus First Aid and CPR to receive a foster care license. In addition, 20 hours of ongoing training per year are required for each foster parent (not each couple) to maintain the license.
• A recent survey indicated that parents could benefit from more education in the area of emotional development and how deeply early experiences impact this aspect of a child’s life. The emphasis in our child development classes will be on the social-emotional development of children and the cultivation of emotional safety.
• Incoming foster parents often have a broad range of parenting experiences. Some have never had children, some have multiple biological children in the home, and some have grandchildren. With the wide scope of parenting advice available—much of which can be in violation of state regulations for foster homes—it is of crucial importance that our parenting community is unified philosophically.
Our Love to Nurture Institute makes training easy and convenient.
• Hope & Home provides all training on-site with free childcare (exception: childcare is not provided for the Launch weekend due to the nature and length of the event).
• Training is spread out into three phases.
Phase 1 Initial Training
The Launch Weekend (Orientation)
Eight Weeks of Love to Nurture and Love to Nurture-based CORE Training
The Promise Weekend (Group Processing and Graduation)
Phase 2 Monthly Support Groups
Attend one support group per month
Phase 3 Individual Learning Plan
Self-guided study that follows a predetermined curriculum.
What makes the Love to Nurture Institute different?
It’s relationship based. Because the heart of our Love to Nurture philosophy at Hope & Home is centered upon relationship, we’ve even infused our teaching style with relational elements. Every class we offer has engaging and interactive components, ranging from icebreakers and discussions to working together in small groups on vignettes and even getting to know veteran foster parents over weekly potluck meals.
It’s not a crash course. Some agencies will train and license a family in a week. At Hope & Home, we take pride in getting to know parents over at least a two-month process that begins with our Launch weekend and follows with eight weeks of classes. This allows families to become as intimately acquainted with the foster care journey as possible before taking a child into their home.
It’s ongoing. The first eight weeks of classes–though in-depth–are only the beginning of the learning experience; new questions will constantly arise once foster parents start taking children into their home. Not only do we have a well-equipped front-line staff and directors on call to help navigate this new world, but we also hold monthly support groups with free childcare where families will share a potluck meal, receive encouragement and understanding from other foster parents, view a monthly Love to Nurture video, and engage in discussion–all while meeting the state requirements for continuing education.
It’s tailored to individual parents. Once families have graduated from Phase 1 of the Institute, they will meet their home supervisor and as a team design an Individual Learning Plan (ILP), which will incorporate findings in their homestudy as well as specific areas of interest in their continued growth as foster parents.
It’s flexible. If parents have exceptional circumstances that prevent them from attending a support group, they can, at their convenience, schedule an appointment to make up that training in our Parent Enrichment Library. They can watch the video for the month they missed, receive the correlating handout, discuss the content and receive training credits, all in under an hour.
CLASS DESCRIPTIONS
The Launch: Incoming families will connect over dinner Friday night and learn alongside each other during orientation Saturday as they take an introductory journey into the world of foster care. Topics covered are History of Hope & Home, History of Foster Care, Nurturing Traumatized Children, Working With Birth Parents, Abuse and Neglect, Team Approaches, Effects of Fostering on Families, Boundaries and Confidentiality, and Program Goals. 8 hours credit
Love to Nurture I—Showing Love: Ross Wright will provide a refreshing perspective on parenting as he discusses emotional bank accounting, cultural expectations of parents, and principles of child development that will cause parents to re-think common parenting assumptions. 3 hours credit
Love to Nurture II—Teleology: What makes this child tick? How can parents work with children rather than against them? Ross will take parents on an interactive journey of self-awareness as he equips them with skills to bring out the uniqueness of each child and celebrate who God has made them to be. 3 hours credit
Love to Nurture III—Avenues of Achievement: Performance systems for achieving behavioral goals will be explored.
Love to Nurture IV—Rewards: Parents will explore how to bring out the best in children through the use of rewards and Hope & Home’s own “zoondoogles.” 3 hours credit
Core I—Volume 7 and Parenting Styles: Volume 7 details the state rules and regulations that govern foster care homes. Leonard Greene, MA, will guide parents regarding Volume 7 compliance. Parenting Styles, taught by Jacque Thurman, MHR, will provide an in-depth analysis of how certain parenting characteristics affect children and in particular how some popular parenting techniques are often in violation of Volume 7. 3 hours credit
Core II—Attachment and Loss: What is attachment? What are the implications for children who have been abused and neglected? How can foster parents cultivate nurturing bonds with children? Jacque Thurman will highlight some of the science of relationships and equip foster parents to help children cope with their often-confusing feelings about being in foster care. 2 hours credit
Core III—Child Development and Discipline with Dignity: Child Development will emphasize key concepts of child development while investigating the emotional worlds of children through developmental stages. Discipline with Dignity will put to rest outdated ideas about how to discipline children and will equip parents with skills to reframe behaviors, identify emotional needs underneath behaviors, use limits with compassion, and ultimately maintain the emotional connection and dignity of the child while teaching pro-social behaviors. 3 hours of credit
Core IV—Adoptions and the Legal Process: This class will give parents an overview of casework and the legal side of child welfare and adoptions. The rights of birth parents, children and foster parents will be highlighted. 2 hours credit