Foster Care Training

This class reviews core principles in intervention with infants and young children in the child welfare system. These include: 1) the importance of empathic attention to the experience of both the parents and children; 2) collaboration with colleagues in other disciplines and agencies; 3) appreciating the power of trauma in psychopathogenesis; 4) understanding how parental childhood experiences affect their current parenting behavior; and others. Reviews of participants’ are will be supplemented by lecture-presentations by the trainer. Principles and practices of reflective practice and supervision are included. This class will consider how early trauma can affect child development, how neurodevelopmental deficits can have independent effects, and how concurrent difficulties in both areas can create special difficulties for children in foster care, their parents, and in turn, providers who work with them in child welfare.

We will describe specific strategies to assess and intervene that take both lines of development into account. Work with parents and direct work with children will be explored.

**How can participants utilize their new skills and knowledge after the training to reinforce their learning?

1. Review current cases with neurodevelopmental knowledge in mind.
2. Design interventions that consider the impact of neurodevelopmental difficulties on caregiving relationships.