Foster Care Training

When parents immigrate to the United States from another country, particular those countries plagued with trauma and poverty, they often arrive with hopes and dreams for a better future, especially for generations to come. Families with recent immigrant roots often hope that their children will have a future with less poverty, trauma, and other challenges that parents may have experienced in their country of origin. However, upon raising children in the United States, they may experience tension with their children, particularly in the adolescent years, as children learn the culture and customs of the United States and they continue to negotiate the cultural ties of their parents’ ethnicity. Often this tension impacts the parent-child relationship which further exacerbates typical challenges faced in the parent-child system found in normal adolescent development. Parents and their children may not fully comprehend the challenges of acculturation, rather they may personalize the conflict. The family may be at odds due to misunderstanding each other’s cultural roles and identities. Acculturation is not a linear process and it often is a story told only by each individual. Therefore, in service delivery, it is important that we learn how to support families in navigating this challenge in order to strengthen the parent-child relationship and reduce the conflict/tension that may be occurring.