Teaching Family Homes - Foster Parent

-Teaching Family Homes Specialized Foster Care-

Teaching-Family treatment foster families provide a higher level of care for children who have moderate to severe behavioral and emotional involvement due to the trauma of abuse and neglect. The therapeutic foster care program at TFH is a program that follows the Girls and Boys Town Psycho-Educational Model recognized as a Model Program and Best Practices by Office of Juvenile Justice Delinquency Prevention and the American Psychological Association in working with children. Girls and Boys Town is a model that focuses on utilizing the skills of children and parents in regards to behavior management. It is a highly structured program, which features clinical techniques such as Effective Praise, Teaching Self Control, Preventative Teaching, Corrective Teaching and Staying Calm. Families are observed and evaluated on their work. This program consists of a therapeutic team that supports the foster family, which includes weekly visits and emergency assistance that is available 24 hours a day.

In addition to the basic licensing requirements of the state of Michigan, the TFH foster care worker provides the treatment foster parents with a 30-hour pre-service training course from the Girls and Boys Town “Rebuilding Children’s Lives” curriculum. Our annual training requirement is also higher at 24 hours compared to the state licensing rule of 15 hours per year. Rebuilding Children’s Lives training is used by Girls and Boys Town to train foster parents who care for children who have challenging behavioral problems, are learning disabled, have suffered abuse, or have been diagnosed with psychiatric problems. This training is packed with information, step-by-step techniques, and suggestions to help them care for foster children, especially those with troubled backgrounds. This training and teaching modality provides the foundations of good parenting, teaching social skills, giving positive and negative consequences, and preventing and dealing with behavior problems. Treatment topics such as using motivation systems, creating treatment plans, and building relationships are discussed. Also addressed are subjects uniquely challenging to foster parents, including working with families of origin, respecting cultural differences, dealing with issues of separation and attachment, and creating a safe environment for all children in the home. (Please see attached description of individual trainings provided.) Foster Parents are also provided training on special needs such as working with sexually abused children, preparing youth for higher education, psychotropic medications, and working with the schools, as well as trainings on specific mental health diagnoses such as bipolar disorder, reactive attachment disorder, and oppositional defiant disorder to name a few.

Foster Care Workers visit at least monthly with the biological families to provide training in Common Sense Parenting. This training helps families to develop a conceptual framework for understanding behavior from a family/relationship perspective, to develop an understanding of learned parental responses impacting the behavior of our children, to develop practical, “common sense” responses to children’s behavior, to develop practical tools for parenting today’s youth, and to develop skills to reward and encourage appropriate behavior, while approaching negative behavior with a positive, teaching focus. (Please see attached description of individual trainings).