This class introduces foster parents to the building blocks of a helping relationship. Since successful application of the helping skills is critical to effective interventions that promote the well-being of children, the nonverbal and verbal skills needed to build positive relationships with children and their families are highlighted.

• Identify the building blocks of a helping relationship.
• Identify the nonverbal and verbal helping skills.
• Describe behaviors that demonstrate effective use of the nonverbal helping skills.
• Choose to use the nonverbal and verbal helping skills necessary to build effective relationships with children and their families.

This class provides foster parents with a key tool, the Child Development Guide, and the information necessary to identify the presence or absence of significant skills and abilities for at each age and stage of child development, to report important observations to the caseworker and other service providers, and select and use activities that will support a child's optimal development.

By the end of this class, participants will be able to:

• Recognize the specific skills and abilities characteristic of each age and stage of child development.
• Recognize possible indicators of developmental disabilities or delays that require further assessment.
• Use the Child Development Guide to support the healthy development of the children in their care.

This class introduces the inner working models that children develop in the critical first years of life and helps foster parents recognize them. The behavioral clues that identify healthy attachments are highlighted. Foster parents learn how to select and use parenting behaviors that support emotional security and attachment in children as well as how to identify behaviors that may signal unmet needs related to attachment.

By the end of this class, participants will be able to:

• Explain the meaning of the term attachment.
• Identify red flag behaviors that may signal unmet needs related to attachment.
• Choose to help a child build and maintain attachments to her birth family.
• Select and use parenting behaviors that will maintain and support a child's attachment to his birth family and his foster family.

Note: The Glossary of Terms, Child Development Guide, and Resource Guide will be mailed to registered participants before classes begin, and participants will be able to download handouts from the CDHS Foster/Adoptive Parent Training Project Web site.

Class 1 presents a general view of developmental disabilities as defined by the New York State Office of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities.

By the end of this class, participants will be able to:

• Use the Child Development Guide to identify developmental red flags.
• Define the five categories of developmental disabilities, including mental retardation, cerebral palsy, autism, epilepsy, and neurological impairments (including the most common neurological impairments found in children in care: attention deficit disorder, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and learning disabilities).
• Appreciate the importance of early detection and diagnosis, classification, and services access.

Class 2 introduces the services community involved with children with developmental disabilities and addresses the importance of the advocacy role with regard to accessing needed services in a timely and effective manner.

By the end of this class, participants will be able to:

• Identify sources of national, state, and local level services provided for children with developmental disabilities.
• Demonstrate familiarity with a glossary of terms and acronyms used in the field of developmental disabilities.

Foster/adoptive parents may find themselves in the position of having to advocate for children with diagnosed or suspected developmental disabilities. As they confront multiple services agencies as part of their role as advocates for the children in their care, such interactions can sometimes be intimidating and frustrating. Workshop participants will benefit from acquiring a better understanding of their individual negotiating styles and will be exposed to a model that will allow them to explore and refine their own negotiating skills as they practice using them in example interactions with service providers.

• Appreciate the importance of the advocacy role with regard to accessing services in a timely and effective fashion.
• Identify the key qualities of an effective advocate.
• Differentiate between aggressive, passive aggressive, and assertive behaviors used during services advocacy.
• Practice using assertive responses as a way to enhance their advocacy role.

Class 4 addresses the challenges of raising a child with developmental disabilities. Family relations, the many ways that caretakers and any other children in the family are affected, and the heightened levels of stress that the entire family often experiences are discussed in depth, and the importance of effective family stress management, and networking are addressed.

• Identify the additional sources of stress associated with the care of children with developmental disabilities.
• Recognize signs of stress in themselves and other family members.
• Utilize stress management techniques that can help lower family stress levels.
• Appreciate the importance of networking with other families raising children with developmental disabilities.

This offering is intended for and available to only those individuals who are currently providing foster care for one or more children to whom they are related or with whom they have close family ties. In order that they will be in a position to receive the maximum benefit from this offering, it is strongly recommended that kinship foster parents register for and attend all nine meetings.

This meeting provides an opportunity for kinship caregivers and the trainer to get acquainted with each other and share a little about personal kinship experiences.

This meeting provides the participants with an opportunity to assess the immediate impact of having children live in their homes, and to assess their ability to meet the needs of the children in their care.

This meeting provides kinship foster parents with an overview of reunification and adoption and identifies ways they can support permanency planning (children leaving foster care). It will also provide participants with the opportunity to assess the strengths and needs of the members of their immediate household and of their extended family members.

This meeting provides the participants with an opportunity to assess the immediate impact of having children live in their homes, and to assess their ability to meet the needs of the children in their care.

This meeting continues to help kinship foster parents examine the behaviors of the children living in their homes, to identify methods of managing the behaviors, and to identify and access needed services.

This meeting assists kinship foster parents in understanding their role and responsibilities in the education of the children in their care and in preparing youth for independent living.

This meeting provides an opportunity for kinship foster parents to examine the challenges birth parents face. Participants will gain a better understanding of birth parent issues and how those issues interplay with the kinship foster parent’s own issues. The nature of drug addiction in birth parents and how the addiction affects their ability to provide children with permanency (help their children leave foster care) will be explained and explored.

This meeting examines how kinship foster parents can redefine their relationship with birth parents, in order to ensure children’s physical safety and emotional well-being, and to support birth parents’ efforts to achieve permanency (help their children leave foster care).

This meeting provides kinship foster parents with the opportunity to complete a self- assessment of their ability to meet long-term needs of the children in their care. Participants will develop a family plan which they should later share with their caseworkers for the purpose of planning for the child (ren).

• Clarify the relationship between their fathers and their own style of fathering.
• Share their visions of the father they choose to be.
• Explore different cultural styles of fathering.
• Explore the unique roles of fathering daughters and fathering sons.
• Clarify the role of foster fathers in case planning.
• Practice important communication skills, particularly active listening and reflecting.

• Define trauma.
• Explain key terms used when discussing trauma.
• Recognize how trauma can impact children at different stages of development.
• Appreciate the impact of trauma on children’s positive development and overall well-being.
• Select strategies that support and nurture traumatized children in their homes.