Tagged With "Center on the Developing Child"

As I listen to and watch the struggles in the Illinois and Indiana Child Services Departments, I search for states that have implemented the lens of trauma awareness and resilience into the child protective services practices. We know, by the numbers of foster care placements, failed placements, re-placements, residential treatment placements, failed residential treatment placements, failed adoptions, etc. that removing children from their families is not necessarily an answer for families...

KQED is the NPR-affiliate public radio station based in San Francisco, CA. We’d like to hear from adults (18+) who were separated from their parents when they were children. Perhaps the separation was due to economic reasons, war and conflict, incarceration, foster care, or something else. How did that period of separation impact you in the long-run? How has it impacted your connection to others and how you build relationships? If you're a parent, how does it influence how you parent? We’re...

A couple weeks ago I was enjoying breakfast in a popular restaurant when I was captured by a conversation a husband and wife were engaged in with their children just across from me. I happened to be researching studies and locating data related to...

January 28, 2014 My Dear Colleague Jeff Bergstrom: The interaction you had with the couple in the restaurant in June 2013 was fascinating, scary and probably an honest summary of some of the mis-information and the biased thinking that dominates segments of this country. I have been told that it is difficult to reason someone out of something that they have not been reasoned into. This may be one of those conversations. But I wonder where the ideas about children in foster care came from? It...

This really has been an ongoing issue for several years. I see the biggest problem here being time for appropriate assessments, time with the right people involved with the child(ren) to get adequate history, and then payment for the services of the professionals who conduct the evaluations. The current modus operandi is that anyone (even a driver) can deposit a child at a clinic for an evaluation by a psychiatrist who is given very little time. Yes, I had a 3 y.o. brought in by a driver for...

Hi, Rebecca-- My contact with foster children is primarily throgh in-home behaviroal health services in Southern, NJ. I cannot comment on the use/over/under use of medication. What I can comment on is severely inadequate trauma recognition and trauma-informed treatment and interventions across systems--lack of recognition of trauma symptoms/trauma effects and punitive responses to them; lack of preparation by the child welfare system for foster families for the level of severity of...

Having adopted our two kids through foster care before we got involved with dog rescue, I've got this insight... those people aren't any more capable of caring for a dog than they would be for a child who came to them with worries, obsessions, and, God forbid, any obvious "defects".

Agreed. The field is doing a lot to try and train therapists; however, as in all of child welfare, there is so much turnover. Also, evidence-based trauma training is expensive and typically involves a follow up of 9+ monthly supervision sessions. But it is where we must go! Likewise, this is where I recommend that all foster youth be screened at intake for trauma experienced/level of...and that treatment clearly involve a response to PTSD appropriately and/or mental illness as may or may not...

WOW!!! I am amazed at your excellent impulse control.... I could not have been so still listening.... I would have had to leave and would have been ill with a migraine for a day or I may have confronted less graciously .... But I love how you artfully had their engagement and then informed them they had met their first former foster child.... You are a hero!!! I totally understand the experience of stigma but I guess there is a blank spot in my intellect as to why??? I have never hid that...

"For you, one child may not be the whole world, yet, to one child you may be their whole world." This is so beautifully writen and so completely true!!! Thank you!!!

I would recommend the blog talk radio that I put on the aces in peds group from Dr. Bruce Perry who discusses how to deal with these kid. Also the Foster Care AAP pdf has a section in the last pages about signs/symptoms kids can present with and how to respond to them. With these kids sensitivity is the key. Anything negative - a small look, a tone of voice that suggests even the slightest possibility of disappointment in the child can produce internal feelings of "I am terrible, I should...

I echo the sentiments shared here. Service Management Solution services for Children is about to embark on this journey. We have been trained through the Karyn Purvis Institute in Texas, using Trust Based Relational Intervention. I manage the training for the Child Protection Investigators with the Department of Children and Families as well as the training for Case Managers. It is a daunting task. We plan to eat this elephant one bite at a time. The TBRI training will be required after...

Elaine: I know that Benchmarks PFE (Partnering for Excellence) has a pilot program going. They are working with researchers from Duke to help measure and assess. They are doing a few things I think are pretty cool: Making sure therapists and clinicians are trauma-informed and ACEs aware. Making sure Child Welfare and Family Services is trauma-informed and ACEs aware. Making sure medical insurers they work with are as well. But they are also doing some innovative things such as working with...

This is a problem area for sure. I did my residency at Riley and worked as a pedi in several places in Indiana. The child welfare system is incredibly broken because the resources alloted in Indiana are poor (and MI too). And all over the country. The case workers are not well trained or paid and all I have met are almost totally unaware of the importance of ACEs science, but getting better. I’ve talked to a few of my fellow peds classmates still in Indiana and it hasn’t changed much I am...

Does anyone know of communities who send a clinician to serve the child (trauma, psychological first aid, etc) when a social service/child protective service team member goes out for a "removal" from a family and move into foster care or kinship care? Someone to focus on the needs of the child, instead of the inevitable negotiations, information-gathering, packing, and management of the parent/guardian? I know I've heard of communities who do this across the country. Having a hard time...

Hi! I'm looking into specific trauma-informed training programs and curriculum for bio families that are being reunited with their children. Does anyone have any recommendations? Thanks! Abby