It’s World Wide Wednesday! Here’s what’s news in the world of foster care and adoption around the web:
- Supporting Youth in Foster Care in Making Healthy Choices: A Guide for Caregivers and Caseworkers on Trauma, Treatment, and Psychotropic Medications. This guide from the Children’s Bureau is intended to help caseworkers, foster parents, or other caring adults learn about trauma experienced by youth in foster care and treatment options, including approaches other than psychotropic medication. The guide presents strategies for seeking help for youth, identifying appropriate treatment, and supporting youth in making decisions about their mental health. The guide is also available in Spanish here.
- FOCUS on Foster Families is a free mobile app designed to support foster youth and their caregivers. Through candid video interviews and online tools, FOCUS on Foster Families helps users improve their skills related to communication, emotional regulation, problem solving, and goal setting.
FOCUS On Foster Families brings FOCUS Family Resilience Training skills to families where they live, work and play. FOCUS is a program that teaches families to use five related skills to build on strengths and overcome challenges. These skills are problem-solving, goal setting, communication, emotional regulation and managing trauma and stress reminders.
- National Postsecondary Support Map. This map from Fostering Success Michigan provides links and information on state tuition waivers, statewide education support programs, and 4-year campus-based support programs for students who experience foster care.
- The video, How to Make a Bully (From Scratch), appropriately explains bullying as one of the most misunderstood crises of our time. It takes us on an eye opening journey from infancy, highlighting a variety of circumstances within a child’s life that contribute to a bully or victim life-path. Explaining how the bully and victim’s fate can be rerouted through connection, understanding and love, it’s a video all parents and educators should take the time to watch.
These additional five intervention videos provide the skills you need to see the road signs and correct the course:
Bullying Road Sign #1: Ages Birth to 3, Difficult Temperament
Bullying Road Sign #2: Ages 3 to 5, Difficulty Playing with Friends
Bullying Road Sign #3: Ages 5 to 8, Difficulty with Relationships
Bullying Road Sign #4: Ages 8 to 12, Social Exclusion and “I Don’t Care” Language
Bullying Road Sign #5: Ages 12 to 18, The Brain’s Empathy System if Offline
Have news you’d like to share? Please post in our comments!
Inclusion in this post does not imply an endorsement by the Coalition for Children, Youth & Families. The Coalition is not responsible for the content of these resources.
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