Resource Parent Training

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Disaster Preparedness Courses for Resource Parents

Flood waters begin to rise into your home, and police lines are busy because first responders are out in the field during the hurricane. What are you and your family supposed to do while all this is happening? Where are you supposed to go? Who are you supposed to turn to? What do you do after it’s passed and pieces of your home and life are in rubble?

Disaster Preparedness Courses for Resource Parents
These are very real questions people ask in the face of disasters, both natural and man-made. That’s why organizations across the country offer Preparedness Courses. In NJ, Foster and Adoptive Family Services created the free Disaster Preparedness home correspondence and online courses for NJ licensed resource families.

The idea for the course started in March 2013.

“This was right after (Hurricane) Sandy,” trainer and course author Megan Ryan said. “There was a realization that there was a need.”

Disaster Preparedness Courses for Resource Parents : The Initial Courses

The first course in the four course series primarily focuses on what to do before an emergency. This includes things such as preparing an emergency kit, drafting a disaster plan and identifying your community’s plan. Continue reading →

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Loss and Grief Training for Foster Parents

Loss and Grief Training for Foster ParentsLoss is an unavoidable part of life, but that fact doesn’t make coping with it any easier. For those involved in foster care, the grief of loss is often associated with the child who was removed from his home.

However, not much thought was given to the loss felt by the foster parents who have watched as the child in their care for years was reunited with his parents. That is, until recently.

Across the country, states now offer different forms of loss and grief training focusing on the loss foster parents feel when a child is removed from their home. While foster parent message boards offer moral support, states have moved towards offering programs to truly help foster parents cope.

That wasn’t always the case. Continue reading →

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Developments in Resource Parent Training in NJ & the USA

From Miriam Webster’s Dictionary: the word training is defined as the process by which someone is taught the skills that are needed for an art, profession or job. Foster parent training and requirements vary among the fifty states and the District of Columbia.

Development in Resource Parent TrainingFifteen states require between four and nine hours of annual training. The majority of states (thirty-one) have requirements that range from ten to twenty hours per year.

Some states allow for training over a multiyear timeframe, such as Illinois’ regulation of sixteen hours over a four-year period and New Jersey’s requirement of 7 hours annually or 21 hours over a 3 year licensing cycle for Primary Providers. Continue reading →