Foster Parents Can Shape Public Policy

National Foster Parent Association takes a leadership role in mobilizing foster parent voices In 2019, Marissa Sanders was worried about a plan to move all West Virginia children in foster care into managed healthcare. As an adoptive parent and director of the West Virginia Foster, Adoptive and Kinship Parents Network, she was concerned that the […]

Identifying Problematic Sexual Behavior in Children

Imagine getting an after hours call from your caseworker asking if you’re interested in taking in a new child. As is common with late night phone calls, you listen closely for the pertinent details but then your caseworker discloses possible sexual behavior problems, and you go on high alert. But what does “problematic” sexual behavior […]

Cutting the Digital Cord

Whether at home or at work, each day we’re surrounded by desktops, laptops, Kindles, smart phones, smart watches, smart TVs and an array of social media sites that dare us to meet impossible standards of social acceptance. Life in our digital universe can sometimes overwhelm our senses, leaving our brains buzzing and our spirits clamoring […]

Advocacy Gave It Back to Me

My sister whispered, “I know you’re starving. I brought you something from school to eat.” Food was scarce then. Our parents — caught up in their addictions — were unstable and our home life was iffy, at best. I was still in diapers and my 5-year-old sister had become my primary caregiver. I was 4 […]

Lifebooks

Twenty-year-old Arnisia Coleman carries around a stack of paper, mostly court documents, which trace her childhood through foster care. Included among the stack are judges’ orders on foster care placements dating back to when she was 3, reports from social workers, along with minutes and motions from hearings. Hardly any photos were taken at the […]

Calendaring the Lived Experience

Like it or not, managing our calendar is something we all have to do. Growing up as a Black, bi-racial, transracially adopted person that was named two different months neither one of them the one I am born in, I have had a unique relationship to the calendar. In the early years, my connection to […]

Empowering Families

Helping to strengthen children and family connections through engagement and trust-based relationships Parenting is hard. Parenting children who have experienced trauma is a different level of hard. When we look at children and youth who have experienced trauma, there is no doubt that having trusting relationships with caregivers can be a scary thing. Finding ways […]

Fostering a Love for Travel

Planning trips on a budget and meeting the needs of children of all ages can be a challenge. Learn how one foster family offers these unique relationship building opportunities to their children.“I want their little toes to feel wet sand,” I said many years ago to my husband ahead of an upcoming trip to Washington’s […]

Food, Mood, Exercise & Self-Care

The phrase self-care may be a popular trend on social media and fitness blogs. But research shows, caring for yourself first is good not just for your mental and physical health but for your family’s as well.Resource parenting can be stressful for everyone in the family triad. While you can’t take care of everyone’s needs […]