Foster Care Training

Children, youth and families who are involved in foster care have often experienced unplanned and traumatic endings to relationships with other people, with homes, schools, and communities. People providing care also experience abrupt and difficult endings – whether due to change in placement, relationship rupture, loss of eligibility, or another reason. This training offers art activities, discussion, lecture and visual case examples to explore dynamics related to ending relationships, and strategies to facilitate positive closure – a “good goodbye.” We will talk about how to plan ending from the beginning. We’ll discuss challenges and possible responses, and how culture affects our understanding and practices. We’ll spend some time outside, and reflect together on what we observe in the natural world related to beginnings and endings. We’ll discuss ways to cultivate the resiliency factor of going outdoors. Information is grounded in years of clinical and personal experience as well as current research in neurobiology and trauma.