What makes child welfare services for young people in foster care “trauma-informed”?
● An understanding of trauma that includes an appreciation of its prevalence among young people in foster care and its common consequences.
● Individualizing the young person.
● Maximizing the young person’s sense of trust and safety.
● Assisting the young person in reducing overwhelming emotion.
● Strengths-based services. Link to Issue Brief
Category Archives: CA&N Resources
Information Packet: Birth Parents in the Adoption Process: Experiences with Voluntary Relinquishment
The process of adoption can produce detrimental effects for birth parents that may last a lifetime, including feelings of depression, sadness, anger, regret, shame, anxiety, grief, loss, and guilt. Adoptions may involve voluntary relinquishment by the birth parent or involuntary relinquishment through a formal termination of parental rights by the court system. This information packet aims to synthesize existing research looking at birth parents that voluntarily relinquish parental rights and explore some of their experiences throughout various steps of the process. Link to Information Packet
Implementing a Post-Care Service System in Child Welfare
The last decade has seen a growing recognition of the need for post-permanency services as a means of achieving the wellbeing of children and youth who were in foster care. Ensuring the availability and sustainability of an array of post-permanency services to support former foster children and their permanent families—whether birth, kinship, or adoptive—can be viewed as the next challenge for child welfare agencies. The development of the Child Wellbeing Project in Catawba County is an example of a local community rising to meet this important new challenge. Comprises three separate Briefs. Link to pdf Brief 1 Link to pdf Brief 2 Link to pdf Brief 3
Promoting Development of Resilience Among Young People in Foster Care
It is critical for systems that serve young people in foster care to support them in developing resilience in the face of risk and adversity. This involves a shift from a focus on deficits to a focus on strengths, from risk amelioration to enhancing protective factors, and from considering resilience to be a static trait to understanding resilience as a continuous, interactive process. Link to Issue Brief
Making Healthy Choices: A Guide on Psychotropic Medications for Youth in Foster Care
A guide for youth to help them in making decisions about their health and psychotropic medications involves five steps plus one:
- How do I know if I need help?
- What are my rights?
- What are my options?
- What information do I need?
- How do I make sure I am taking my medication safely?
- What should I do about medication when I am leaving foster care?
This guide presents valuable information for youth in foster care related to each step. Depending on your situation, selected sections or the entire guide may be useful to you. The guide’s checklists and worksheets can help you organize your thoughts. Link to pdf Guide
Responding to Childhood Trauma: The Promise and Practice of Trauma Informed Care
This paper works to increase appreciation of the relevance of trauma in understanding children and in planning to meet their needs. It discusses the vulnerability of children and the unique needs of traumatized children. Part 1 on the challenge of childhood trauma provides a synopsis of child development and the differential responses to trauma, identifies risk and protective factors related to child maltreatment, explains the magnitude of the problem of trauma and consequences related to child psychiatric disorders, adult psychiatric disorders, juvenile and criminal justice, women who have been traumatized, inappropriate interventions, and the psychological effects of trauma on children. Part 2 on trauma-informed care reviews key components of trauma informed care, strength based approaches and the promotion of resilience, the use of the public health model, and programmatic approaches to trauma informed care. Recommended public policies at the federal, State, and local levels are also discussed, and a list of suggested reading is provided. Link to Brief