Resources From Grantees

Currently, we know that older youth wait longer to be adopted than younger children, which likely can be attributed to the lack of foster/adoptive homes available for teens. In order to achieve permanency for each of these teens, we need more families with the skills and competencies to understand and respond to youth needs. 

This is where the CORE Teen Curriculum comes in. CORE Teen has shown statistically significant growth in knowledge for those families that participated in the pilot, which included three components:

• Self-assessment
  • Research-supported survey to help parents determine their strengths and areas for growth  
  • Designed to be taken before and after the training  
• Classroom curriculum
  • Comprises 14 hours with 7 sessions  
  • Includes lecture, videos, activities, and discussion  
• Right-time training 
  • Individual modules that parents can access whenever they need them
  • Addresses eight themes, each including a 20- to 25-minute video reflecting stories from youth, resource families, and content experts as well as an accompanying discussion guide.  

Youth engagement takeaways: 

• The CORE curriculum was developed in partnership with older youth and foster care alumni. 
• The following characteristics identified for foster/adoptive parents can also help professionals in their work with youth: 
  • Attunement
  • Acceptance
  • Adaptability/flexibility
  • Solution-focused problem solving
  • Supportive
  • Trustworthiness

The National Adoption Competency Mental Health Training Initiative (NTI) aims to improve the outcomes for children and youth in foster, adoptive, and guardianship families by infusing enhanced permanency, adoption, and mental health competency in the provision of casework and clinical practice.

NTI developed two state-of-the-art, standardized, web-based trainings to build the capacity of child welfare and mental health professionals in all States, Tribes, and territories to effectively support children, youth, and their foster, adoptive, and guardianship families.

Youth engagement takeaways:

Youth engagement components are embedded in all NTI modules. Examples are listed below:

• Foster skills that facilitate rapport, conversation, and openness with children and youth about their past experiences (module 2).
• Identify and describe specific techniques that help children and youth know more about their stories to work through their past experiences and form healthy relationships (module 2).
• Define four primary goals in doing attachment casework with children and youth (module 3).
• Facilitate conversations with children and youth about grief and loss in a sensitive, empathic, and timely way (module 5).
• Employ casework practices and tools with children and youth to facilitate the grieving process, building readiness for new relationships (module 5).
• Employ casework practices and tools with children and youth to build resilience and facilitate healing from trauma (module 7).

The National Training and Development Curriculum for Foster/Adoptive Parents (NTDC) is a 5-year cooperative agreement that will develop and evaluate a state-of-the-art training program to prepare parents who are fostering and adopting to effectively parent children exposed to trauma, separation, and loss and to provide these families with the ongoing skills development needed to understand and promote healthy child development. At the end of the project, States, counties, Tribes, territories, and private agencies will have access to a free, comprehensive curriculum that can be used to prepare, train, and develop parents who are fostering or adopting. This curriculum will not only be for families who are fostering and/or adopting children through the public child welfare system but also for families adopting through the intercountry or private domestic process. The NTDC curriculum will comprise three components:

• Self-assessment
• Classroom-based training
• Right-time training

Youth engagement takeaways:

• The themes/competencies of the NTDC curriculum provide valuable tips for professionals as well. The competencies shared below are integral to youth engagement:
  • Learn the three Rs: regulate, relate, reason.
  • Explain the impact trauma can have on attachment and relationship development.
  • Provide opportunities for children/youth to grieve and help them understand that grief can be lifelong. 
  • Recognize the importance of establishing and maintaining essential relationships with and for children. Understand and honor children’s attachment to their birth families.  
  • Understand the impact of frequent moves and the importance of managing transitions for children.
  • Develop trust with youth and help them develop a sense of connectedness and belonging.
  • Identify strategies to help children develop positive and proud identities.
  • Discuss difficult/sensitive issues with children in a supportive manner.
  • Use empowering and inclusive language. 
  • Utilize strategies to make children/youth impacted by trauma and loss feel psychologically and physically safe.
  • Show consistency and predictability. 

The National Quality Improvement Center for Adoption and Guardianship Support and Preservation (QIC-AG) was a 5-year cooperative agreement designed to promote permanence (when reunification is no longer a goal) and to improve support for adoption and guardianship preservation. QIC-AG worked with eight sites that implemented evidence-based interventions or developed and tested promising practices. The interventions that were proven effective can be replicated or adapted in other child welfare jurisdictions. Over the 5 years, QIC-AG developed numerous tools and products that States, counties, Tribes, and territories can utilize to enhance their continuum of services for children and families moving toward adoption and guardianship as well as those that have already obtained guardianship or finalized the adoption. The research done through QIC-AG will help the field to best serve adoptive and guardianship families as well as identify their needs and the interventions that have shown to be effective with this population.

Youth engagement takeaways:

• The Winnebago Tribe implemented family group decision-making, which brings the children/youth and their family together to create and carry out a plan that will ultimately achieve permanence for the child/youth. 
• New Jersey implemented Tuning in to Teens, which teaches parents the technique of mindful emotion coaching to engage with their teens. Parents learn how to respond to their teen’s emotions and help the youth identify and regulate their emotions.