Foster Parent College has been steadily working with a professional translator to create Spanish versions of our eleven pre-service courses. This huge task is coming to a conclusion!
We are happy to announce that nine of our pre-service courses are now available in Spanish:
Apego entre padres e hijos (Parent Child Attachment)
Desarrollo del niño (Child Development)
El cuidado de niños que han sido sexualmente abusados (Caring for Children Who Have Been Sexually Abused)
El efecto de la crianza temporal en los hijos biológicos (The Impact of Fostering on Birth Children)
El equipo de bienestar del menor (The Child Welfare Team)
El esfuerzo conjunto con las familias primarias (Working Together with Primary Families)
Entender el comportamiento de niños en crianza temporal (Understanding Behavior in Foster Children)
Maltrato y negligencia infantil (Child Abuse and Neglect)
Reducir el estrés familiar (Reducing Family Stress)
Stay tuned to
FosterParentCollege.com as the remaining two Spanish pre-service courses will be added soon.
New Workshop! Self-Injury
When children purposefully self-injure, parents are understandably alarmed. In this Advanced Parenting Workshop, Dr. Rick Delaney, with the help of a young woman who has self-injured, will explore what self-injury is and what it means. Then a family study is presented of a teenager named Hannah who has experienced trauma and secretly cuts herself. Participants will use interactive exercises to apply the strategies of trauma-informed parenting to respond to Hannah's needs.
In this new workshop, participants will experience a blend of online video-based training, share discussion postings with other parents from around the world, and submit assignments which are reviewed by a trained teaching assistant.
Update! Create Your Own Series
At Foster Parent College we strive to listen and respond to the needs of the agencies which use our courses. We have upgraded the management system with our new Series Training Program. This program allows agencies with unlimited accounts to create clusters of FPC courses and register, monitor, and manage parents' progress through them. This program also supports blended training, using clusters of online courses in conjunction with in-person meetings.
Now in its 3rd printing, Off Road Parenting gives resource parents tools and techniques to help change a child's undesirable behavior. Published by Northwest Media – parent company to FosterParentCollege.com – this practical handbook helps foster, adoptive, kinship, and birth parents to discover how disruptive behavior can be changed, recognize and respond to both "acting out" and "hidden behaviors," and understand the nature of positive discipline. Available to order on www.SocialLearning.com.
Study of Understanding Noncompliance Workshop
Northwest Media, Inc. (NWM) recently completed a study of the Advanced Parenting Workshop on Understanding Noncompliance. Participants for the online study were recruited by email through NWM's database of resource parents who have taken FPC courses and who met the eligibility requirements. Participants were randomly assigned to either the treatment or control group, and participants in both groups completed online pre- and posttest assessments, including parenting attitudes and knowledge questionnaires.
Eighty-two parents completed the study, 41 in each group. Results indicated that parents in the treatment group improved significantly more from pretest to posttest than those in the control group in both knowledge and attitudes related to children's noncompliant and defiant behavior. Treatment group parents also reported significantly greater increases in their child's cooperative behavior than did those in the control group. As might therefore be expected, treatment group parents reported a significantly greater decrease in stress related to their child's noncompliant or defiant behavior than did control group parents. A 3-month follow-up study is currently under way, and a report on the full study will be posted on the FosterParentCollege.com
Research Page when completed.
Both the workshop and the evaluation study were funded by Small Business Innovation Research Grant #R44 HD056645 from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.
FREE Weekly Webinars for Agency Staff!
Foster Parent College provides free webinar trainings to agency staff. The webinars give an overview of our courses, introduce the FPC management system, and explain how to customize the system to fit agencies' reporting needs. To view the webinar schedule or request a private training, visit the FosterParentCollege.com
Free Webinars! page.
Foster Parent College will also be debuting pre-recorded instructional videos for agency staff and resource parents. These videos will be available on our website within the next few weeks. Make sure to connect with us on social media to receive updates on newly released videos!
Welcome New Agencies
We extend a warm welcome to these new agencies which have recently joined
fosterparentcollege.com.
Mending Hearts Family Services in Glendale(Arizona)
Adoptions Foster Care at Vista(California)
Esperanza Foster Family Agency(California)
Krista Foster Homes(California)
New Families Inc.(California)
Trinity County Child Welfare Services(California)
Ariel Clinical Services(Colorado)
Family Ark(Indiana)
National Youth Advocate Program(Indiana)
Seeds of Life(Indiana)
Guilford County Department of Social Services(North Carolina)
St. Joseph Orphanage(Ohio)
As a reminder, agencies should periodically check FPC's
Affiliate Map or
Become a Foster Parent Map to confirm their agency information is correct. These maps help resource parents, or individuals interested in becoming resource parents, find agencies that accept FPC training towards their annual training requirements. The Affiliate program is FREE to all agencies. If you aren't listed but wish to become listed, please fill out an
Application online.
Welcome New FPC Staff!
We'd like to introduce FPC's newest staff members: